


Like Moths to Flames

by andiebeaword



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Attraction, Emails, Episode Centric Chapters contain dialogue from the show, Eventual Smut, F/M, Letters, Love/Hate, Slow Build, Slow Burn, very close to canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:14:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 36,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24941395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andiebeaword/pseuds/andiebeaword
Summary: This story is stemmed from the episode "Entropy." During the episode we are told that for Dr. Spencer Reid to pose as a married man who wanted his pregnant wife dead, he had to trade emails back at forth with the mysterious 'Miss .45.'After discovering her MO, Reid had to learn everything about her, including her real name: Catherine Adams.The episode doesn't name how many emails, specifically, or how long, so I will make that up for the purposes of this story.While emailing back and forth, Spencer Reid slowly falls into Cat Adam's trap.Even worse...he fell in love.
Relationships: Catherine "Cat" Adams/Spencer Reid
Comments: 5
Kudos: 44





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Unlike my previous Cat & Spencer story, this one is staying closer to canon. To start out, the only thing really that won't be canon (per say) are the letters and/or emails between Catherine Adams and Spencer Reid. This story will begin right at the beginning of Season 11. I plan to have the first 10 or so chapters be the letters and emails (maybe instant messaging and texting au) between the two with little dialogue otherwise. The entirety of "Entropy" will be the following 4-6 chapters. I have ideas for a continuation during Red Light and Date Night. 
> 
> \--------♥--------

Morgan: "The unsub that we're looking for is a contract killer who is doubling back to kill his former customers. This man is highly skilled and well trained. Under no circumstances should he be engaged without backup."

Lewis: "So, was this a case of organized crime tying up loose ends?"

Rossi: "Organized crime's got nothing to do with this, at least not in the traditional sense. 

Reid: "In 2013, the Bureau took down the Silk Road Network. Our initial assumption was that it was an encrypted online market for illegal drugs, which it was, but upon further inspection, we were stunned at the breadth of goods and service being traded online. Weapons, child porn, even hit men."

Hotch: "And the payment scheme was escrow based, in which the buyer would put down half as a deposit and the other half when the seller delivered."

Morgan: "We've now confirmed that all 3 victims hired the unsub over the past year through a similar escrow system."

Lewis: "So why is he killing his old clients?

Rossi: "Hit men don't leave a message unless you pay them to. The exception is to leave a warning for customers or competitors."

Reid: "This unsub suffered some sort of injury to his jaw or voice, most likely as a result of something these customers did."

Morgan: "Now, normally a man with this kind of defect would attract attention. The fact that he hasn't indicates that he has deep pockets and a network or resources at his disposal."

Garcia: "What if there's a whole network of professional killers out there?"

Morgan: "Then we'll get 'em." 

"What? You wanna write? The Dirty Dozen. What's this? This what you call yourselves? This is who you're gonna kill next. 

"Talk to me." 

Garcia: "Hotch told me to review everything that I had on the Dirty Dozen. So I went back to look at the botnets I used for the original search."

Morgan: "Botnets. What's that?"

Garcia: "Think linked computer systems completely randomized with anonymous proxy servers so no one can hack me. Make sense? I don't pay attention to how many botnets I use. It's like when you Google something, you don't pay attention to the numbers, you just pay attention to the search results. But when I went back to look at the digital breadcrumbs, someone was counting me. I used 12 botnets, Derek."

Morgan: "You're the Dirty Dozen?"

Garcia: "My filters work good, but if these hitmen are as good as I think they are, they could use a reverse worm protocol and then they could-"

Morgan: "Whoa, whoa, would they know it was you?"

Garcia: "They would know it was someone at fbi.gov at Quantico. That's why I shut everything down. Because it's just a matter of time-" 

Morgan: "No. I'm not about to let anything happen to you." 

\--------♥-------- 

Hotch: "We now have the names these four other hitmen are known by. The Sniper. The Chemist. The Bomber. And Miss .45." 

"You have a record of all the kills she was paid for?" 

Snowman: "I have records of everything."

Hotch: "Alright, even a contract killer can have a victimology, a pattern of which she's not aware. We need to find that."

Reid: "These 3 hits--they were all men who wanted to kill their wives."

J.J.: "That's the oldest motivation in the book. Why-why are they special?" 

Reid: "She took their money, then killed the men who hired her." 

Hotch: "All 3 of them had children."

J.J.: "Maybe children are the line hitmen won't cross?"

Reid: "The Chemist and the Sniper both performed jobs that involved families. Eh, theoretically, if the price is high enough, a hitman shouldn't have morals. I think these kills are personal to her. Personal enough to risk double-crossing her contract."

Hotch: "Because something similar happened to her."

Reid: "And that's how we get her to come to the table. I pretend to be that kind of client."

Hotch: "How do we know that's gonna work?"

Reid: "We don't. It's a calculated risk based on her M.O., which is categorically different than the men."

J.J.: "They're cold, clinical, long-distance. She's up close and personal."

Reid: "She knows that she has to be more careful because she actually wants to kill her targets. I'm going to pretend to be a husband who wants his pregnant wife dead."

J.J.: "Well, I'd want to kill you if you told me that." 

Reid: "Exactly. Then all we have to do is set the right meeting spot. A bar or restaurant we control so the odds are better of us taking her alive."

Hotch: "That's our best strategy. But there is one flaw."

\--------♥-------- 

Reid: "According to the emails she sent me setting up tonight, her name is Cat."


	2. Spencer

May 29, 2015

My hands are currently sitting on my work computer. I hate email. With Garcia's help, we were able to hack the network in which The Hitmen Network operated from within. We saved the Snowman who in return got us exactly what we needed. Intel on one Miss .45. Out of all five hitmen, she is the only one we have profiled to be a woman. Her M.O. is boilerplate textbook. She hates men. Specifically, she hates men who want to have their families killed. It's blatantly obvious that she too had a father who wanted (and possibly also already succeeded) in having his family killed. All except her. 

Today, I am meant to use the resources given to us to access the network and contact her, specifically, for wanting my pregnant wife dead. Obviously, I'm lying through my teeth but she doesn't know that. My plan is to only give her my first name and disregard anything about my true personal life. As I type away at the keyboard, all I can think is why did I talk myself into this? I know the logical reason. I am the youngest member on my team and I'm male. 

I open up the prompted email account Garcia set up for me to use to contact her. Right now, all we know is that she discreetly goes by the name, Miss .45. That's it, well, and her M.O. My job now, is to lure her in with my fabricated story and tell-tale lies. I understand, not everything I say on here can be lies. This woman hasn't been caught yet for good reason. She is the only hitman among them to be up close and personal with the men she kills. She most likely coaxes them to fall for her, thus leading them to get her to kill their wives and unborn children. Just running the thought through my brain makes me cringe. 

I click on the box labeled 'New message.' It opens up a brand new email for me to write. Her email address wasn't as clever as I would've thought. psych0Lov3r45@gmail.com. Yes, how original, indeed. I shook my head at the thought that, here I am, willingly casting my line out, even though I might as well be the fish that falls for the 'food on the hook' trick. I begin typing away my first of what hopefully isn't too many emails, before we figure out who she is and how to arrest her. 

Miss .45, 

I'm contacting you because I acquire your unique services. A good friend of mine slipped me your information when I told him in confidence that I no longer love my wife and wish she were dead. 

It pained me to type that. Mostly because the only woman I ever even thought to get married to....is dead. Killed by another psycho bitch I wish was alive, rotting in jail, instead of dead along with the love of my life. 

He may have also let it slip that you were easy on the eyes. I feel weird about this, to be honest. I mean, I was completely in love with her when we married. But, after only two years, we found it hard to get pregnant. It was causing a rif between us neither of us wanted. We fought more, I chose to leave the house early and arrive home later on purpose, just to not have to see her or look her in the eyes. 

I literally am not sure where that came from. I stare at my desktop screen for a minute. Maybe undercover work isn't quite as tedious as I thought. Or maybe, after doing this job for over a decade, some once useless information I subconsciously picked up, is now coming to the forefront of my mind in need to get this job done. Yes, let's roll with that. 

At least, that was the case until a few months ago. We argued over something trivial. I can't remember. We fucked. Next thing I'm told, she's pregnant. We're not happy. She pretends to be and frankly, so do I. That friend I mentioned earlier, he was also about to divorce his wife when she broke similar news to him. He told me you are the woman to speak to if I want that bitch and her baby gone, permanently. 

Shit. I had to shoot up off my chair and to the coffee machine. It was strange and oddly disturbing just how good I am at playing this sick part. I feel like I want to throw up. I stare blankly at the coffee and it grounds the beans into the beautiful liquidy goodness I love to drink like my life depended on it to function. Which, right now, I needed. I pour a cup of sugar in my mug and stir it until the entire mixture is dissolved. I slowly walk back to my desk. I was close to finishing it and sending it, crossing my fingers that she'll take the bait. We profiled that this woman can't resist the opportunity to kill a man who is easily another surrogate for her father. I plop back in my chair, rolling it up to my keyboard. 

I'm told, you're the best. And I have the means to meet your demands. Please only respond to this email. My wife doesn't know this one even exists. Hope to hear from you.

Best Regards,   
Spencer Merton 

I click 'send.' I let out a deep breath I'd been unaware I was holding in. Just as promised, I shot a copy of the email to both Hotch and Garcia before calling it a night. 

\--------♥-------- 

Back at my apartment, I pull out the book and her picture. I lay down in bed, clutching on to both tightly in my hands. I fall asleep to dreams of the two of us getting married and having kids. God, I would never in a million years ever speak to or speak of anyone whom I loved. I couldn't wrap my head around it. Maybe it was because my own parents divorced when I was a kid. That never sat well with me, still doesn't.


	3. Catherine

May 31, 2015

My phone pinged at the worst time, possible. 

I had my latest client tied up to his king sized bed, his dead wife's body beside him, a nice clean shot perfectly between her eyes. Poor Jared didn't realize what he'd gotten himself into when he found me within the Dark Web. His poor wife, Caroline, begged her disgusting son of a bitch husband to put the gun down that I had handed him. Like clockwork, Caroline had arrived home at exactly 9:00 p.m. I made sure she saw her cheating spouse with his pants down (or, otherwise gone) with me in the bed they shared. By now, it was all too easy. I was practically working solely on muscle memory at this point. I was getting rather bored. 

I needed some new excitement. 

After contacting our expert "cleaner" to come destroy any evidence that I was ever at the Gratton residence, I was back home in my crummy, cheap apartment. I no longer got off on the thrill of killing stupid, pathetic men, or having them shoot their wives. Normally, I'd leave them to be found by the local authorities, watching them go to jail for killing their wives. That was something I'd never do. Have a wife or a mother killed. I loved my mother to death, literally. And I blamed my ass of a father for it. I never found him. So, until I do, surrogate assholes will have to suffice. But, like I said....I was getting bored. 

I dug out my phone and connected it to my laptop. Thanks to the Snowman, I have managed to keep a rather low profile within our network. Unlike the others, I prefer my attacks to be far more personal. Usually, I find my prey on those stupid dating apps. Over the years, I learned just what buttons all males require pushing to find themselves begging me to kill them in the bedroom. Seducing men has never been a problem for me. 

I found I had a rather peculiar email sitting in my inbox. Great, cool. Another dumbass who wants to fuck. I click on the email, opening it up. It's from a sm123@gmail.com. How fucking original. Like I've never seen one like that, before. I read it within ten minutes. Dude's name is Spencer. I almost close it out and hit 'delete' but something coerces me to reconsider. I did say I was bored. Maybe this is it. Plus, he already is high on my kill list along with Jared. Fuck, why can't all men just keel over and die?! I open a new email and shoot this Spencer a quick one.

Spencer,

Oh, you flatter me. I must warn you, that's dangerous behavior to stick to. What's your wife's name? Have you cheated on her before? Name a time and place and I promise I can make it worth your while. I'm sure your good friend told you I don't play dirty just to leave empty handed. 

Until next time,   
Cat

I fall back on my twin bed with a load huff. I don't own much these days. And whatever I need I usually can steal with ease. By this time next week, I'll have another notch in my (well, his) bedpost, a sorry excuse for a man either in jail or killed by me for killing his poor wife. I'm kinda tired of it being easy. It's been years since I last saw my father. I hate that somewhere, he's out there, probably living the good life in a fucking picket fence house with a bimbo wife and perfect fucking assholes for kids. Man, what I wouldn't give to see him dead...by my hand. 

I guess as long as this Spencer idiot pays me my ten grand, I'll sleep a little better at night. 

Let's hope.


	4. Spencer

June 12, 2015

I've discovered Miss .45's name is Cat. Sounds like a pistol. Pretty sure I've heard Morgan refer to a few of his one night stands as such. I have read and reread her email to me more times than I'd like to admit. Clearly, she doesn't care to waste time. I get that. I can understand that. Problem is we need more time to make the proper arrangements. Meaning, I need to buy us as much time as possible. Also, meaning I need to keep emailing her for at least nine more months. 

According to the Snowman, he remembered that the month of February was always a down month for the group. Coincidentally, they all would put off any jobs that had gone unfinished. We wanted to bring in Miss .45...Cat, and we wanted..I wanted to be able to bring her in with as minimal casualties as possible. I am also very acutely aware that by striking up emailing her, as long as I've got her attention and I keep it, she will go the next nine months without killing any more men. That was a good thing. Why did this not feel like a good thing? 

Cat, 

I'm guessing it's short for Catherine. I've once been told that flattery will get me everywhere and nowhere. Which is it? My wife? 

Did I want to? My hands wavered over the keyboard. My fingertips still dangling mere centimetres from the keys. I knew I had to be as close to the truth as possible. We've profiled this woman to get up close and personal with her marks. That was the one thing that made her different than the rest. The reason why her body count was almost 3x more than the rest of them put together. She was good at what she does. What she doesn't know is I am good at what I do, too. 

Her name is Maeve. I haven't cheated. Another woman she worked closely with managed to catch me in a compromising position. I hoped she would have left me. She didn't. Instead, she told me I'm going to be a father. I wanted to shoot myself. 

Why am I so ridiculously good at my job? I felt sick, again. Memories and flashes of Maeve's death are playing through my head like an old movie from the 1930's. I needed to give her what she wants. And what she wants is a man who clearly despises his pregnant wife (for whatever reason we hadn't profiled, yet) and wishes her dead. 

I don't have a place in mind, but I do have a date. Valentine's Day. I may come across as a typical male to you, but I assure you, I am not. I don't doubt you can make anything worth my while. I bet I can return the favor. I'd like to get to know you better..Cat. Please, let me know if you're still interested. I look forward to hearing from you again. 

All my best,   
Spencer

With that, I shut off my computer and grab my bag and things and head home for the night.


	5. Catherine

June 30, 2015

Have I mentioned to myself just how bored I hate to get? Pretty sure I have, but I do also enjoy making my marks sweat it out. This Spencer character is becoming more intriguing by the email. I opted to go back to my laptop, open it up and reread his email....again. 

Cat,   
I'm guessing it's short for Catherine. I've once been told that flattery will get me everywhere and nowhere. Which is it? My wife? Her name is Maeve. I haven't cheated. Another woman she worked closely with managed to catch me in a compromising position. I hoped she would have left me. She didn't. Instead, she told me I'm going to be a father. I wanted to shoot myself. I don't have a place in mind, but I do have a date. Valentine's Day. I may come across as a typical male to you, but I assure you, I am not. I don't doubt you can make anything worth my while. I bet I can return the favor. I'd like to get to know you better..Cat. Please, let me know if you're still interested. I look forward to hearing from you again.   
All my best,   
Spencer

Sure doesn't take a genius to guess what my given name is. Now, if he were to get lucky with my middle name, then I'd be impressed. I pull up Google and search for Spencer Merton. I get a load of random men. Some women, even. But, none I believe to be him. Most men by now want to meet up, soon, and help devise a plan for me to kill their wives. Not Spencer. He wants to wait until months from now? He better have a damn good reason. And money to back up that mouth of his. I open the email box and start typing away. 

Spencer,   
Sweetie. I can see now that you aren't the standard typical man. But, a man, nonetheless. So, please, explain to me why I should agree to this arrangement? I presume you are aware of my tactics. I don't like to wait. Girl's got to keep a roof over her head, you know. I won't agree to your proposition until I see a wire transfer to the bank account I've linked for you below. Be a doll and send me just how much you believe I think you're worth to continue this little charade of ours. I expect a hand written letter next time. Call it woman's intuition, but something tells me you're very good at writing letters, Mr. Merton.   
~Cat

I shut my laptop and scoot it a few inches away from me. I wanted to know this man. He was already getting under my skin and I hated it. A notification popped up on my phone. Another possible mark. I ignored it. Sure, it could've been easy money, but I'd be lying to myself if I didn't admit that this Spencer was piquing my interests on an entirely new level. 

Exhausted, I lay on my bed and try to clear my head. I never gave him a physical address to have him send the letter I asked for. I scoffed, if he's a genius, then I trust he'll figure it out. We'll see how desperate he is. How much does he really want me to kill his wife? How badly does he want me? I slammed my head into the pillow, burying the thought dead out of my mind. 

Or so I thought....


	6. Spencer

July 18, 2015

It's been a couple of weeks, and we are no closer to locating Miss .45. I have to keep telling myself to call her that. Calling her by her given name only makes me feel strangely close to her, and while over email, I understand I need to keep up appearances, so to speak, I cannot have her seeping into my actual personal life at this rate. She only needs to believe she's got me where she wants me. That is a power I cannot for the life of me give her. Ever. 

Without a case to keep us out of town or in the office, here I am, in my apartment, with my laptop opened up to my email. This woman is bating me. Can't blame her there, as I am guilty of doing the same. But, unlike her, I am doing it for a very good reason. Right? Lately, while trading emails, I find myself slowly leaning towards blurring the line between fake and reality. Only knowing this woman based on our investigation, shows me she is a murderer and the epitome of evil who just happens to be a woman. Over email, she still comes off as arrogant, but I wouldn't know she was a murderer. Just someone willing to help someone else cheat. Sexually. That thought alone scared me. 

Spencer, 

Sweetie. I can see now that you aren't the standard typical man. But, a man, nonetheless. So, please, explain to me why I should agree to this arrangement? I presume you are aware of my tactics. I don't like to wait. Girl's got to keep a roof over her head, you know. I won't agree to your proposition until I see a wire transfer to the bank account I've linked for you below. Be a doll and send me just how much you believe I think you're worth to continue this little charade of ours. I expect a hand written letter next time. Call it woman's intuition, but something tells me you're very good at writing letters, Mr. Merton. ~Cat

Even I hate that the woman has a point. Men are animals. We truly are. It's pure animalistic and primal in nature. No matter how well developed our brains are, no human being is truly above that. Again, something that downright scares me. Pet names. Cute. Two can play that game. As I finished reading over her email, I pulled a drawer of my desk out, rummaging through it for stationary and my favorite pen. Catherine wanted a reason to agree to my proposed arrangement? This was the best I had. 

Catherine,   
Darling. Yes, I am a man. Of that, I can assure you. My reason for wanting you to agree to this arrangement? You'll find half in a letter that should reach you before you care to respond back to me, if you stick to pattern. I am well aware of your tactics. One of the reasons I want you. Now, should you agree to my terms, I will wire you the rest. You're right. I am good at writing letters. Please, Cat, let me know what you think once you've read it. I'll patiently be waiting. 

Yours truly,   
Spencer

The second I hit send, I felt like I needed to vomit. Bad. Somehow, I was able to maintain to urge and managed to swallow back down the bile that had built up. Gross. I felt like I was slowly becoming two different people. On one hand, I was still the Spencer who wanted and was willing to allow myself to be bait for a woman who is known to kill the men she meets, unless she gets them to kill themselves first. On the other, I'm becoming the Spencer who is strangely looking forward to see what more this woman could say. 

I click my pen open, and begin writing her a letter. By the end of it, I sealed it up, slapped a stamp on it and added it to the pile of letters I'd previously written to my mother to be sent out on my way to work in the morning. As I laid down to close my eyes, I silently prayed that what I wrote wasn't about to haunt me in my dreams.


	7. Catherine

July 26, 2015

It burns my insides knowing I'm even giving this Spencer guy a chance. I am strangely both intrigued and disgusted by him. I keep waiting for that wire transfer I was promised. It never came. The thought crosses my mind to delete him and his emails, even though I'm aware another one came thru a couple of days ago. I also surprisingly received a letter from the great Mr. Merton, as well. Feeling rather bored, as per usual, I relent and make my way to my laptop. Once I'm in, I open up my email. The second I click the button to open his email to me, I hear the notification on my phone, letting me know I got a deposit. I decide to check that first. 

$10,000 was successfully deposited in your account. 

I had to blink my eyes a couple of times. Now, this Spencer is speaking my language. I went back to my computer with a newfound smile on my face. I was now pleasantly looking forward to his email, then, his letter. In that order. 

Catherine,

Darling. Yes, I am a man. Of that, I can assure you. My reason for wanting you to agree to this arrangement? You'll find half in a letter that should reach you before you care to respond back to me, if you stick to pattern. I am well aware of your tactics. One of the reasons I want you. Now, should you agree to my terms, I will wire you the rest. You're right. I am good at writing letters. Please, Cat, let me know what you think once you've read it. I'll patiently be waiting. 

Yours truly,  
Spencer

Hmmm... I thought. He's managed to keep his emails quaint, but enticing. Makes me wonder what information holds in his letter. I pull it out of the pile that sat on my sad excuse for a desk. The envelope was of high quality stationary, I could tell. His cursive of my name looked even prettier than mine. He did make it clear he is a man. I took my letter opener and cut it, pulling the letter, itself, out and unfolded it to read. 

My Darling Catherine,

I'm so glad you asked to begin writing letters. We do still need to email. It will make my employers highly suspicious if we stop. On top of seeking your help with executing my pregnant wife, I am also seeking out you...for me. I have been wanting a lover who can indulge me in highly intelligent conversation. You seem to fit the bill better than my wife ever has. Admittedly, it is getting harder to wait until Valentine's Day to meet in person, but I hope that by sharing our deepest thoughts within these letters, we can manage until then. I don't have a clue as to what you look like, but I feel more attracted to you than her. I am finding that I hate myself less and less each time I admit it to myself, even in silence, or, more importantly, in a letter to you. I hope you've accepted my conditions as I have come to accept yours. 

As always,  
Spencer

I folded his letter back up, placed it inside the envelope and tossed it in a drawer. I pick up a wired notebook and turned to a blank page. I hope he's okay with receiving mine on less perfected stationary. I decide to finish it with a little secret I hope will get his blood pumping. With a little over half a year to go, I need to start putting my plan with him in place. I quickly shoot an email to my colleague, letting her know I need her ready at the drop of a pin on the fourteenth of February. 

I shoot Mr. Merton a quick email, answering his as best I could. 

Spencer,

How clever of you to decipher that by simply clicking on your email, I comply to your terms. Cute. I do, accept your terms, as I do so hope you have mine. Tsk, tsk, be careful what you say, Mr. Merton. You'd be surprised when Cat gets your tongue. And yes, I'm being cheeky. You're not bad at what you claim you do best. Let me know, truly, if I've done better. I'll await as long as I have to. 

~Cat

I close my laptop, and place it on my desk. Instead of trying to sleep, I decide to pull my hoodie on and take a stroll through the park. It's dark and with only the streetlights on, I feel safer than I am when out and about during the day. Every now and then, I'll see his face. My father. He's the reason I do what I do. What that bastard did to my mother is unforgivable. I do so hope this Spencer plays his cards right. I'd hate for the first smart cookie to contact me be lost in the wind with all the rest. Oh, what a shame that would be.


	8. Spencer

August 15, 2015

"Hey, Spence, it's late, you know. Go home. Try and get some sleep." 

J.J. patted my shoulder, caringly, walking towards the elevators with everyone else. I sit at my desk, carefully waiting for my friends to disappear so I can open up my email and the letter Cat wrote me. A few days ago, I opened it up in front of Hotch and Rossi, both nodding their head at me once I informed them that she has agreed to my terms about not meeting in person until next year. If I'm being honest with myself, I am finding it harder to keep the line drawn between Spencer Reid and Spencer Merton. 

Shaking the thought away, I clicked open my email, then grabbed my letter opener, gently opening up the envelope in front of me. I decide to read the letter first, knowing that it will take me much longer to respond to that than it would her email. 

Spencer,

You can drop the pet names. Unless you really mean them, but something tells me you don't. Oh, don't worry. I'm still onboard with our plan, though you may need to give me quite a few more details if I'm to remain hidden until February. I mean, I'd like to think I got just as much stamina as the next woman..maybe even your wife, but I'm sure you can see things from where I'm standing. I lied. I'm laying down now. You feel more attracted to me? Prove it. Tell me in your next letter what my words have done to you...or rather, will do to you. Keep reading. 

I averted my eyes to my computer screen. I had to. Definitely harder than I thought. Why did I ever agree to do this, again? Why did I think I was able to handle pretending to be someone I am clearly not? I take a break, placing the letter on my desk to the side, opening up her email to me, placing my glasses on my nose in order to read it better. 

Spencer,

How clever of you to decipher that by simply clicking on your email, I comply to your terms. Cute. I do, accept your terms, as I do so hope you have mine. Tsk, tsk, be careful what you say, Mr. Merton. You'd be surprised when Cat gets your tongue. And yes, I'm being cheeky. You're not bad at what you claim you do best. Let me know, truly, if I've done better. I'll await as long as I have to.

~Cat

Damn, this woman is cryptic. And clearly intelligent. That's a dangerous combination if I've ever seen one. I'm in trouble. Thankfully, my team only sees the emails and doesn't know about the letters. Why did I even bring that idea up? Am I trying to kill myself? It would seem so. I did ask for the response she gave me. Reluctantly, I laid back in my chair, opening up the letter again, picking up where I had left off. 

You said you wish for a lover to engage in intelligent conversation with. Tell me, how intelligent do I sound when I tell you that I'm feeling the loss of human contact, wishing I could know what you look like..do you have strong forearms? I'm guessing you have soft eyes. The way you talk both in the emails and your letter tell me you have impeccably soft eyes. That's a weakness of mine. My hand can't decide whether to caress my breast, flicking my nipple until it's hard enough to invite your mouth to it, or, to travel past my navel, dipping and massaging my clitoris until it's practically begging for your touch. And, Mr. Merton, I'm hoping your touch is nowhere near as soft as those eyes. 

How was that? Play along. I'm looking forward to these letters. We got an awful long time to kill until February. And I get bored. Easily. Best to keep up with me, Spencer. 

Catherine

I flew out of my chair, the pages of her letter dropping to the floor near my desk. I ran to the nearest restroom. I couldn't seem to splash my face fast enough. The water wasn't near cold enough. After a few more splashes, I simply stared at my reflection. I was starting to no longer recognize the face of the man I saw. The line in my head was getting fuzzier by the minute. And Cat's words did absolutely nothing to help that. I walked back to my desk, opening up a new email window to answer her back. 

Cat,

You're right. You have a knack for level of intelligence I find attractive. I'd love to divulge in more detail, but my wife is waking up and honestly, the last thing I need right now is a reason to come up with a guilty excuse as to why I, of all people, am on a computer at this hour. 

Spencer

I power off my desktop and shove the letter in my messenger bag. I don't think I've ever been so upset that Valentine's Day isn't coming sooner.


	9. Catherine

August 22, 2015

Living alone had it's perks. I wasn't to be bothered by anyone, unless it was for a job. So why was I finding it hard to remain composed when I read his fucking letter? I don't know this insufferable man. He's practically already cheating on his wife with me and asking me to kill her. Normally, I would have done the job by now. Seducing men is simple, once I get to know my prey. Problem is, this Spencer was a man of mystery, one I hated to admit I was impeccably intrigued by. 

His letter came in the mail faster than I anticipated. I wonder how long he had to write it, how nosy his wife was, would she peer over his shoulder and assume he's writing to her? Now, I'm wondering if that's his 'thing.' Writing seducing letters to the women he finds sexy and fascinating. I can only hope I'd have the opportunity to break him come Valentine's Day. In fact, I'm itching for it. 

I open his letter that had been sitting on my desk for a week. 

Catherine,

I hate that you seem to see right thru me, even if it's only in these letters. You want me to write down what your words have done to me? I'm a multi-tasker, but not in this regard. I can promise you my handwriting will not be legigable if I tried. Your words have given me feelings and thoughts I can honestly tell you I've never felt with my wife.   
I imagine you're just the type of woman I would find myself undressing with my eyes, hating myself for not only feeling the way I feel, but in also acting on it.   
Tell me, Cat, what sounds can I make come out of your filthy mouth when I yank a fistful of your hair? I imagine you may be all talk when you feel you're in control, but, I promise you, with me, you'll be as submissive as they come.   
You got two hands, don't you? Why not both. It sure would be quite the sight to see if you ask me. What would make your clitoris throb more? Feeling my fingers tickling your folds as I whisper sweet nothings into your ear or tongue fucking every nerve inside you until you are desperately begging for more?   
I like this game. Check to you. 

Spencer

Whoa. I had to fold his letter into a fan. Merton sure knows how to write. After allowing my body and mind to cool down from that letter, I eased myself at my computer, hoping that his email displayed just a bit of a hint as to what I can look forward to next. 

Cat,

You're right. You have a knack for the level of intelligence I find attractive. I'd love to divulge in more detail, but my wife is waking up and honestly, the last thing I need right now is a reason to come up with a guilty excuse as to why I, of all people, am on a computer at this hour. 

Spencer

Ever the poet, Mr. Merton. A thought crosses my mind to google him, find out more about him that he's not telling me. But, I'm discovering just how enticing it is to learn about a man by his choice of words and not his choice of actions. Carefully, I type out my next email. That's when it hits me. He's mentioned more than once that his employers keep tabs on his emails. Just so I don't get blindsided, probably should have a look into that. 

Spencer, 

Glad to know we agree. Please, next time, stay at the office while you type. I'd hate to miss out on something all because of your wife. Why 'you of all people?' Oh, my god, are you a technophobe? That would explain the....oops. Sorry, wrong client. 😉 Well, Mr. Merton, I do look forward to your next email. 

Tootles,   
Cat


	10. Spencer

September 5, 2015

"Reid!" 

I felt my head snap up from where It had been, nestled in my arms on my desk. "What?!" Morgan just laughed, tauntingly. 

"Hey, no need to get mad, just curious about what you've learned from Miss .45, that's all." Cat. Catherine. Miss .45. aka the woman I've not only been emailing monthly for a while now, but have been writing secret letters to. Letters my team knows absolutely nothing about. 

"Not a whole lot," which wasn't a lie. "Just..that she hates her dad, and she's patient." 

"Patient? Reid, are you sure you can handle keeping this up for five more months?" All I could hear in his voice was worry and maybe some concern that I'm sure was there, but it still didn't stop me from snapping back at him. 

"Morgan, I can handle it! I have a well thought out...methodical plan. We know that the reason why she has the highest body count of the Hitmen Network is because she takes her time getting to know her target. I'm just playing her at her own game." Morgan sighed, placing a hand on my shoulder. 

"I know, Kid. I just don't want to see you falling down a rabbit hole you'll find you can't crawl out of." I got his meaning, but decided just to nod as he walked over to talk with Hotch. 

I turned on my computer, waiting for it to boot up. Hoping it couldn't hurt to open up my email, I went directly to the message I just knew would be waiting for me. 

Spencer, 

Glad to know we agree. Please, next time, stay at the office while you type. I'd hate to miss out on something all because of your wife. Why 'you of all people?' Oh, my god, are you a technophobe? That would explain the....oops. Sorry, wrong client. 😉 Well, Mr. Merton, I do look forward to your next email.  
Tootles, Cat

"Is that her latest email?" J.J. leaned in over my shoulder to read it. Once she was done, she gave me a sideways glance. "Tootles?" 

"What does she think she was 'missing out on,' Reid?" Morgan joined us, Hotch not far behind. 

"It was late, I was tired, I told her in my last email that "my wife" would find me any minute. I know I'm supposed to get as much information as possible, but I'm trying to also keep her from cutting our deal, too." 

Hotch nodded, but I could feel his scowl from the six feet distance between us. "Reid, in your next email to her, you need to find out if she is only focused on you, or if she has other clients, as well. We profiled her to invest in one man at a time, but you are the first one to drag it out." 

"Gonna write her one right now, Hotch." 

Thankfully, the rest of the team walked away, leaving me with my own thoughts and my outgoing email window open and ready to begin. 

Cat,

As per your request, I am here, in the office. I don't necessarily consider myself to be..but my colleagues do make fun of the fact that I prefer paper to tablets. I am quite curious, am I your only client for the time being? I would understand if I'm not, like I've said before, your reputation precedes you. Tell me, are you truly fine with waiting five more months? I'll give you my reason. Honest. My wife is due with our child just weeks after Valentine's Day. She already knows I don't love her. I am beginning to grow fond of you, though.   
~Spencer

I hit 'send' and give myself a moment. As I typed the words, 'She already knows I don't love her,' all I could think about was how Diane yanked the false confession straight from my throat, one of many of my pathetic attempts to save her. 

Thankfully, we had a case and I was able to remember to bring my stationary with me. After hours on the plane, and more in front of a board, I found myself in my hotel room for the night. I reread Cat's letter to me, over and over. What the hell am I doing? 

Spencer,

I so do enjoy having the ability to push all the right buttons when it comes to men. I am especially enjoying pushing your buttons. Oh, you do surprise me, Mr. Merton. I revel in the very thought of getting to experience what we've only discussed on paper. 

I've been undressed by plenty of wandering eyes, none of which belonged to a loyal and promising partner, you, included, Spencer. 

Pulling my hair? Kinky. Daring words to write to me. I guess we'll never truly know until February. Oh, honey. I'm not a fan of 'sweet nothings.' 

No, I'd much rather have you tease me and bring me to the brink a few times before you even think of allowing me the satisfaction. 

A chess player, are you? Tell me, Spencer, have you ever lost?

Catherine

I begin writing back to her. I decide to make this one a little longer. If I give her a little more, then maybe she'll continue to keep me as a client. I just hope it's later, rather than sooner, if she ever finds out I'm not who I claim to be. 

Even worse? I'm beginning to wish that Cat wasn't a dangerous unsub we are trying to catch.


	11. Catherine

September 5, 2015

Not even three seconds after I had tossed my latest burner phone on the cot, it started ringing. 

Unknown📲: "Hey, it's me. Got a tip that my service were wanted."

Me📲: "Yes. They are. I know you're a very busy woman, so I'll make this brief. I've got a very special client I am meeting on Valentine's Day." 

Unknown📲: "Ooh, special, indeed. So, what'll it be, Cupid?"

Me📲: "Oh, please, I am so Psyche. Anyway, I just need to know if you'll be available and what your price is. I have quite the payout already."

Unknown📲: "Alight, I'll bite. Must be one hell of a client to pay you without even meeting you." 

Me📲: "Oh, you have no idea." 

Unknown📲: "Count me in. Send me the deets when you can." 

click. 

I hardly ever go to the suggested safe house where the rest congregate. I find being alone helps me out in more ways than one. Like, tonight, for instance. I am able to sleep with whomever, knowing that my plans won't be at all interrupted. 

Well, except tonight. 

My phone went off again, alerting me that I had yet to open my latest email from Mr. Merton. I told whatshisface or whoever the dick was that was still glued to my bed to take a hike. Thankfully, he knew what was good for him and I didn't even have to sharpen my claws at all. I sighed. That was actually a shame. 

Cat,

As per your request, I am here, in the office. I don't necessarily consider myself to be..but my colleagues do make fun of the fact that I prefer paper to tablets. I am quite curious, am I your only client for the time being? I would understand if I'm not, like I've said before, your reputation precedes you. Tell me, are you truly fine with waiting five more months? I'll give you my reason. Honest. My wife is due with our child just weeks after Valentine's Day. She already knows I don't love her. I am beginning to grow fond of you, though.

~Spencer

Boy sure knows how to listen when told. That's a good sign. Gotta hand it to him, he's deciding to be bold with me. I can take that and run. No, not especially. But, five more months does give me time to work out just who this man is and what his real motives are. No man I've ever met has been 100% honest with me. Spencer sure as hell comes close. Hmmm...I wonder..does her due date have anything to do with the late date? He wants me to kill her just before she's set to give birth? That's cutting it kind of close. I don't murder babies. I don't exactly care to murder mothers, either, but, then again, most of the deadbeat husbands and dads take care of that for me. Would Mr. Merton be capable of such things? 

Quickly, I typed up a formidable response. Dare I say, I am quite liking this game of ours. 

Spencer,

Nice to know you listen...like a good boy. I understand, technology can be useful, though. Don't you agree? It's how we are able to communicate...for now. You're not. I will say you are the only client I've drawn a peculiar liking to...in a while. Feeling guilty there, Spencer? I warn you, you are walking on thinner ice than you realize. I don't kill children. Tread carefully, Mr. Merton. 

~Cat

I pull out his latest hand written letter, going over his words, how carefully they are poised on the pristine stationary. This man really does have a way with the written word. 

Catherine,

You may know how to push buttons, however, I'm afraid you wouldn't even know where to find mine. For that, you would have to meet me, first. I am personally making it my goal to surprise you, Cat. Truly, I, too, am counting down the months until we meet. 

I would be loyal to you, Cat. Of that, I can promise you. 

Is there something you'd much rather prefer? I can tell you I'd much rather you pull my hair. There's more than enough of it. Not a fan. Dutily noted. 

Now, see, that there is teasing. 

Yes, I am. I've never lost a game I didn't care to lose. 

-Spencer

I'm sad that his letter this time was shorter. I may need to up my game here. Yes, that's what I'll do. I went to write just what I needed to to get the blood in his system to travel more south than anywhere else. Only five more months to go. I can wait. I am...a very, patient woman, after all.


	12. Spencer

October 9, 2015

"Reid, how's the communication coming on your end?" 

I was staring at my monitor screen, reading over the email from Cat I just opened. Seems the minute I sit down to type, word travels fast. Sometimes I hate how obvious I make it that I have a strong dislike for modern technology. "Oh, uh, Hotch, well, see for yourself." I pushed the monitor towards him, giving him a good view of her words there on the screen. 

Spencer,

Nice to know you listen...like a good boy. I understand, technology can be useful, though. Don't you agree? It's how we are able to communicate...for now. You're not. I will say you are the only client I've drawn a peculiar liking to...in a while. Feeling guilty there, Spencer? I warn you, you are walking on thinner ice than you realize. I don't kill children. Tread carefully, Mr. Merton.

~Cat

"Spencer...I hope I don't need to remind you that she is a serial killer." His hand rested on my shoulder, a look of remorse on his face. 

"I know, Hotch, I---I'm trying to do as I was trained to in these situations. I'm being as honest as I can be without sharing crucial information. I'm purposely writing to draw her in the best way I know how based on what we have so far in her profile." I was sure glad that no one..not a soul knew about my letters I've been exchanging with Cat. Spencer Merton had no problem with opening a P.O. Box. 

"Reid," Hotch says as he gathers the last of his things, before heading out the office for the night, "please, go home. I need you well rested after this last case. Promise me you'll leave here after you send her your email?" 

"Yes, Sir." With that, I watched my boss walk into the elevator. I shook my head at his words. I hated just how much I find myself looking forward to the next email, her next letter. I type in my response quickly, keeping it short to have more time on my letter. 

Cat, 

Two can play that game. I'd hate to see you when you don't behave. That's a line you won't cross, huh? Care to elaborate? Gotta run and be a good boy to my dead-to-me wife. Until next month.

~Spencer

It's not often that I truly hate how easy it can be to act and talk like a completely different person around certain people. Or, in my case, online in email and handwritten letters to a woman who seemingly matches wits with me, but who is also a murderous psychopath. Yeah, I sure know how to pick 'em. 

By the time I am home for the night, I find myself at my desk again, pulling out Cat's latest letter from the drawer. 

Spencer, 

Dare I say, I do love a challenge. Our date is drawing closer, I can almost...taste it. While I'm not necessarily a big fan of surprises, I am a fan of men who underestimate me. Especially when it's a man, in particular, whom I find myself becoming dangerously attracted to. 

Aww...you would be, wouldn't you? After all, you seem to be nothing but a pitiful lap dog to your pregnant wife. It's sad, really. Sounds methodically boring, if you ask me. 

No buzz cut? Finally, a man who needs more than a wide tooth comb. Tell me, Spencer, am I only teasing? Or am I just downright playing you? 

I hope to match up to you, then. 

Tootles,   
Catherine

I folded her letter back up, ready with my stationary and pen to write back. I felt my eyes getting heavy before I could even finish writing out her name. Exhausted, I managed to find myself in my bedroom, pajamas on and under the cooling feeling of my sheets. I prayed good dreams would meet me the second I closed my eyes. 

They didn't.


	13. Catherine

October 21, 2015

Four months to go. Less than, really. I decided to bite the bullet and go searching to see if I could find this "Spencer Merton." I got on my computer, typing the man's name into the search bar. I can't say I'm surprised as to what came up. No "Spencer Merton," that's what. My search did pull up a "Merton Spencer." Maybe he switched his names. Not that smart or inconspicuous, but, really, who is a certifiable genius, these days? I clicked on the link, sending me to a middle-aged man's Facebook profile. I swear this better not be the man who's been sending me those letters. I gave my old pal a ring. 

Me📲: "Calico. Alcatraz. Tenfold." I heard the clickings of a keyboard on the other end. 

Blocked📲: "Evening, Catherine. To what do I own the pleasure?"

Me📲: "No time for pleasantries, I'm afraid. I need to find a face to the name, Spencer Merton." 

Blocked📲: "Nothing off the bat, want me to dig further?" 

Me📲: "That's why I called you. He's a client. An odd one. Not set to meet him until February." 

Blocked📲: "That is odd. See what I can do." 

With that, I hung up and pulled up my email, sifting through until I found his. Email. His fucking email address. Assuming Merton is smart enough to put the same name to it, I bet my neurotic old pal could pick up a trace, leading me to an IP address. Smirking at the thought, I read Spencer's email. 

Cat,

Two can play that game. I'd hate to see you when you don't behave. That's a line you won't cross, huh? Care to elaborate? Gotta run and be a good boy to my dead-to-me wife. Until next month.

~Spencer

Well, well, well. Getting braver and bolder, I see. I like where this is going. 

Spencer,

I'll draw that line for you when we meet. Face to face. If your wife is so dead to you, then why the hell do you need me? You seem perfectly smart and capable, really, of doing what you plan to pay me for. Cowards get a hold of me in desperate need. Tell me, Spencer, why did you want my attention? 

~Cat

I scoffed as I rummaged thru my litterbox worth of mail. I really need a better filing system. My eyes fell on his written words as I carefully unfolded the parchment paper. Must be a business man of some type. Probably dresses like one, too. 

Catherine, 

Three months and twenty-four days, to be exact, assuming you read your mail, late, like I do. I'd like nothing more than to taste you. Would that surprise you? Dangerous is not exactly a word I've been told best describes me. I'll let you be the judge of that. 

I'd watch my tongue, if I were you, Cat. You may have claws, but I have teeth. If you'd like, I could easily pin you down, making sure to leave you with some bruises that won't fade so nicely. 

I know you're not, Cat. Who said you were the only one playing? 

Spencer

If anything, the fact that the traditional holidays are coming up, I'm sure, Mr. Merton will find himself busy Busy enough not to notice me digging into his life. Normally, I like to find out first-hand in person what my client looks like, helps me out later. Mr. Spencer Merton is...different. And it's about damn time I find out why.


	14. Spencer

November 11, 2015

I got a call from the Bennington Sanitarium yesterday. My mother isn't doing very well. Thanksgiving is also coming up. I decided as I finished purchasing my plane tickets that I'll pay her a visit as well as spend the holiday with her. I'm sure the team will understand. I open up my email to ensure that everything has been paid and, of course, I come across Cat's latest message sitting there in my inbox. 

Spencer,

I'll draw that line for you when we meet. Face to face. If your wife is so dead to you, then why the hell do you need me? You seem perfectly smart and capable, really, of doing what you plan to pay me for. Cowards get a hold of me in desperate need. Tell me, Spencer, why did you want my attention?

~Cat

Damn. I hate it when the bad guys have a point. Got to hand it to her, she sure is smarter than I initially anticipated. I found myself growing more comfortable slipping into the persona of Spencer Merton. 

Cat,

Only ninety-three days left. Are you counting down? You have a valid point. I am a coward. I made that woman a promise and I shattered it. I can't tell her. I can only show her by staying late at the office, or not coming home at all, some nights. I want you, Cat, because, as I've said before, your reputation proceeds you. 

~Spencer

Sending the emails was only getting a little harder to do as we were getting closer to figuring out exactly who she is and why she is only targeting men who want their pregnant wives killed. Garcia is trying hard to get locations and any other vital information to help us out. I sift thru my mail, finding Cat's letters in the middle of the pile. 

Spencer, 

You sure do pride yourself on being one smart cookie. I do read my mail late. Oh my, Mr. Merton. Do be careful what you confide to me here. We may not make it thru dinner if you keep writing like that. Hmm...Surprised isn't the right word. You got me. Maybe not dangerous. How about insatiable? That a better word to describe you? 

Right, again. I do have claws. Ones I keep quite sharp. I'll take your warning into consideration, Spencer. How about I trail my tongue up and down your shaft? I imagine it's be terribly hard to watch it though, what with my mouth taking you all in. I would honestly revel in any bruises given to me by you. 

Glad to know we're both equally enjoying our little game. 

Catherine

Suffice to say, after a much needed cold shower, I crawled underneath the covers of my bed, hoping that sleep would take me away. This would be the first night that I discovered my want of Miss .45 via consistent wet dreams. Valentine's Day can't come soon enough. And, frankly, neither could I.


	15. Catherine

November 24, 2015

I hated to admit it, but I have actually been a little relieved that I still have a couple of months left before I meet the astute Mr. Spencer Merton. Or...at least I was until my contact got a hold of me with some intriguing news. 

Unknown📱: Hey, remember that client of yours you wanted me to look into?

Me📱: Yeah, what did you find?

Unknown📱: Looks like you got played. He's FBI. His name is Dr. Spencer Reid. 

I simply shook my head. FBI. Well, it's about time. I've been on this fucking vendetta for years and only now are the authorities even remotely close to taking me in. 

Unknown📱: Still planning on your Cupid date? 

Me📱: Yes. I'm assuming he knows who I really am. I will need to use this to my advantage. God, I hope he's cute. It'll make this a hell of a lot easier. 

Unknown📱: Google him for yourself. He's not terrible to look at. 

Me📱: I just might. Ciao. 

I pulled up my laptop and googled his real name. Sure enough, there he was. And...damn, he wasn't just cute. The man is hot. I wanted nothing more than to run my hands thru his luscious brown curls. This will make for writing my next letter to him even more of a challenge. I am determined now to write in hints that I know who he really is. On that note, I opened up my email and clicked on his latest one for me. 

Cat,

Only ninety-three days left. Are you counting down? You have a valid point. I am a coward. I made that woman a promise and I shattered it. I can't tell her. I can only show her by staying late at the office, or not coming home at all, some nights. I want you, Cat, because, as I've said before, your reputation proceeds you.

~Spencer

I am counting down, but not to the extreme that he is. It does flatter me so. I quickly went back to my google search window and searched to see if the man was truly married. The internet told me no. Doesn't mean he isn't. I began wondering where he picked up the false name, Merton, from. Maybe a book. Seems more or a reader than anything else. Especially with all the degrees he appears to hold. I typed up my response adamantly.

Spencer,

I am. Though not as detailed as you. Cowards have their strengths, too. I must say, it does feel nice to be wanted. If you don't mind me asking, Mr. Merton, how old are you? I promise if you reveal yours, then I'll reveal mine. 

~Cat

Looking back at the few photos of him that popped up in my search, he looks to be about oh, late twenty's I'm assuming? That would put him very close in age with me. I recently had my twenty-seventh birthday. I knew I could handle it if he was a bit older than he looked. He clearly was born with what most people refer to as a "baby face." Also makes me wonder how old that photo is....he could be even older....I waived any more thoughts on his age away as I took my letter opener and tore at his most recent letter to me. 

Catherine, 

I'm sensing that maybe in being careful with you, would be a grave mistake. That is still not a word that I feel others would use to describe me, however I do enjoy imagining how it would sound coming from you. 

Would it be too forward of me to say that I imagine those claws marking up my back right now? I would also love to know what you taste like...everywhere. I'm getting hard just reading your words. This may need to be my last letter. I fear if we continue, then you'll be right. We won't make it through dinner. I would like to at least appear to be a gentleman in front you for our first date. 

Until I can lay my eyes on you,  
Spencer

I know I should let him have the last word, but that's not how I play the game. I need him to know I'm at least on to him. I don't want to spook him. He looks like he'd be loads of fun to play with. I took out my notebook, beginning to jot down different ideas of how I can write to him that I know he has lied about who he is, but also let him know he's still a client. Time to do some more research.


	16. Spencer

December 14, 2015

My mom still isn't getting any better. I'm worried. With everything riding on this Dirty Dozen case, I feel I've been burning myself out. The stress of pretending to be Spencer Merton both in emails and in letters is both draining and...somewhat intoxicating. I get to pretend to be someone I'm not. Someone whose mother isn't schizophrenic, and now, also doesn't have early onset Alzheimer's. 

"Reid?" I heard my name being called. 

"What?" I knew I sounded like someone being pulled out of a horrific nightmare. Probably because I was. 

"C'mon," Hotch said, "It's time to go over some new information about the Four Hitmen." 

\-------♥-------- 

"Brian Cochran from the NSA" Hotch said. "I've placed him on a 24/7 lockdown as USP terre haute. the network has proven that they can kill anyone, anywhere, anytime. and now that they've targeted Garcia, we can't afford to lose another lead. Cochran used one of the hitmen to target DEA Supervisor Graff."

"But we can press him to get him to cooperate." said Morgan. By this time, everyone was seated around the round table, looking at the screen behind Garcia. 

"Well, fortunately, that won't be necessary." Hotch said. "He had a breakdown in solitary confinement and he was already willing to make a deal."

"We need to go talk to him." Rossi sighed. 

"Garcia and I already did" Hotch answered. 

"That is, we video-conferenced with him." Garcia piped up. "He was limited in what he could tell us about the hit people. He didn't know their names, but he did know all of their areas of expertise."

"How specific do they get?" I asked, not entirely understanding the weight of the my question. "Most successful hitmen are basically just Swiss army knives of murder."

"Well, take the O.G. hit guy who got us into this mess, Giuseppe Montolo. Remember him?" Garcia asked, staring directly at me. "He was a genius at making hits look like an accident. The others, depends on what you're looking for. Take the guy that's still out there, who's responsible for shooting poor Mr. Graff. He's known simply as the Sniper. He can make a T-zone shot from over 2,000 meters."

"Which means he's ex-military." Morgan said, rocking back in his chair. "Not necessarily ours, but he's definitely trained."

"So, who's number two?" Lewis asked. 

"That would be the chemist." Garcia answered. "He works with poison. He specializes in hits that don't leave a trace."

"He sounds delightful." Rossi said, his sarcasm clear as day. "What about number three?" 

"Well, that would be the Bomber." Garcia pointed out. "According to Cochran, he's responsible to for this." Garcia turns slightly, gesturing with her hands, much like I would, towards the screen. "It's a chemical fire in Tianjin, China. Apparently a bureaucrat didn't pay his bribe on time."

"You know that's conspiracy theory garbage," J.J. said, as a matter-of-fact.

"But, what is credible is Cochran's insistence that he was trained by Mossad." Hotch countered. "Jack Garrett's following up on some leads."

"That leaves us with number four. The one with the highest body count of them all." Garcia said, reluctancey in her voice. 

"And who's that?" I asked, already knowing the answer, as just about everyone else. 

"Your email pal, Cat. Also known as Miss .45," Hotch said. 

"Don't forget some know her as the Black Widow Killer," Garcia chimed in. 

"Alright, it's getting late, how about we all go home and get a fresh start on this, tomorrow," Hotch said, as everyone suddenly made a beeline for the door. I stayed behind. "And Reid?" I nodded. "Don't come in tomorrow." 

"What?" 

"Don't come in tomorrow," Hotch repeated. "I know your mom isn't doing so well." I gave him my best confused look before catching him nodding his head towards where Garcia was standing. I relented. 

"Hotch, I--I'm fine, Mom's--she's fine," I said, giving it my best shot. 

"Spencer, go. I'm sure you can email just fine from this laptop," Hotch said as he handed me the horrid piece of technology. I nodded, watching my boss gather his things and lock his office door behind us. "Have a good night, Reid." 

\-------♥-------- 

I plopped down on my chair, opening up my email inbox. A smile crept across my tired face as I saw Cat's name amongst the junk emails. I clicked on it, opening it up so I could read. 

Spencer,

I am. Though not as detailed as you. Cowards have their strengths, too. I must say, it does feel nice to be wanted. If you don't mind me asking, Mr. Merton, how old are you? I promise if you reveal yours, then I'll reveal mine.

~Cat

I'm quick to type out my response. Knowing I was now allowed to go see my mom, help her get back to some kind of relative normal, I wanted to get out of the office now, more than ever. 

Cat,

I'm sure we all do. I can agree. You are, without a doubt, very wanted, Cat. For the record, I just recently turned thirty-three. I also have a question for you. What is your last name? You have known mine for months now. Sharing is caring. I'll even do you one better. I hold three separate doctorates. A couple of bachelor's, too. People who know me often refer to me as a genius. I also love to read. Takes me less than five minutes to get through an average novel. Also, I believe now is a good time to make sure I am able to make our dinner reservation. How about the Q-Town Cafe? 

~Spencer

I clicked the send button, hearing the whoosh of the email being sent to her inbox. I shut down the computer, making sure the laptop on loan was in my messenger bag. Within forty-five minutes, I was home inside my small, but homey apartment. 

I fingered through the stacks of mail, finding hers almost instantly. I made a mental note to tell her in my letter that I won't be available to respond that way until after the new year. I carefully cut open the envelope, unfolding her letter just as I have done with every one before. 

Spencer, 

Oh, baby. I do love it when you write dirty to me. Keep it up. It just might come back to bite you. If I don't get to you, first. 

It's such a shame your wife doesn't hear these words from you. Bet she'd just love to hear how you're so turned on by someone you've never even met. You know, Spencer, we could always agree to skip right to dessert. I'll admit, seeing you act like a gentlemen would be captivating to witness. 

Until we do,  
Catherine

It took me a little over an hour to write out my response before folding in inside the envelope and placing it on m desk with the rest of my outgoing mail. 

I closed my eyes as my head hit the pillow. Hotch is right. A Christmas vacation, and seeing my mom just might do me some good.


	17. Catherine

December 26, 2015

I used to love Christmas. It once was truly a beautiful time of year. One of my foster families, the Smiths, they were some of the good ones. They welcomed me with open arms, never questioned why I was a foster kid, what happened to my parents, none of it. All they cared about was gaining another daughter to love. It was the only house I ever lived in where my new siblings didn't spill secrets like watch out for days they feel you stew, or if you even think about sneaking out, they'll make us all pay. I loved being about to wake up with a genuine smile on my face. 

This year was pretty much the same as the year before...and the year before that. Except, I did have something...or rather, someone to look forward to. Spencer. Or, should I say Dr. Spencer Reid of the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit. Hmm, catchy. At the same time that I wondered where he picked up the name, Merton, I also didn't care. 

The fact that the big date night was now less than two months away, I was beginning to feel even more excited than before. I had an inkling that he, too, already knew my name. Probably knew about my childhood, my parents' horrible divorce, my mother's death. Already growing bored and tired of that, I yanked out my laptop, pulling up my email. Before I clicked to open my latest one from Spencer...I noticed a blinking light on one of my always opened tabs. I clicked on it. Huh...only one of us has been relatively active...I blew the thought away, thinking that maybe they let the Snowman go, or maybe they've already replaced him and the new guy still has to learn just how things work. 

I opened Spencer's email, reading through it with ease. 

Cat,

I'm sure we all do. I can agree. You are, without a doubt, very wanted, Cat. For the record, I just recently turned thirty-three. I also have a question for you. What is your last name? You have known mine for months now. Sharing is caring. I'll even do you one better. I hold three separate doctorates. A couple of bachelor's, too. People who know me often refer to me as a genius. I also love to read. Takes me less than five minutes to get through an average novel. Also, I believe now is a good time to make sure I am able to make our dinner reservation. How about the Q-Town Cafe?

~Spencer

The Q-Town Cafe? Not all that fancy, and also not at all where I need out date to be to play out exactly what I want. I wanted to devise a trap for Spencer and his team. I took out my cell and typed away at the keys. 

Me📱: hey. you want in on my fun? you know what to do. Harry & Glenn's Bar and Grill on Valentine's Day. 

I tossed my phone on the bed, going back to my screen to reply. 

Spencer,

Flattery will get you absolutely nowhere, Mr. Merton. Ah, I won't tell you my birthday. But, I will tell you that I am twenty-nine. I'll keep my last name, thank you. I don't care to get married. I'll share that I barely passed high school. Would have dropped out if it wasn't for my foster family, at the time. You must be a smart ass cookie. Probably a good-looking one, too. That sounds...nice. You know I have never been? Looking forward to our date.

~Cat

I hit send and shut my computer off, setting it down inside the cubby I have for it on my desk. I check my phone, no response. Weird. I grab the latest stack of mail and toss anything that isn't Spencer's letter. I'm beginning to notice that this is becoming a positive part of my day. I shook the ugly feeling, knowing it happens most times the client I get is handsome or cute. 

Dearest Catherine,

I'll be honest, Cat. I've never written anything this risque before, to a woman, on paper, or otherwise. My wife has heard similar words, though never in such a context, before. I have never found her as easy to talk with, as I have you. 

I'm afraid my next letter won't be for a while. I have to take a pre-planned vacation with my wife. It will only be for a few weeks. I promise as soon and I'm back, I will write you. I will still be able to email, as per my job. 

God, Catherine, I wish I could feel you next to me right now, run my fingers thru your hair, kiss you until I can't see straight. I promise, we can enjoy a dessert on our date. I am always a gentleman. 

Until I can see you,  
Spencer

I giggled. I hated that I giggled. I threw the paper on the floor along with the envelope it had been in. I lit myself up and blew a puff of smoke past my lips. Happy fucking New Year.


	18. Spencer

January 18, 2016

Visiting my mother in Las Vegas has never been what most would consider a "vacation." If anything, more times than not, it was a hassle. She'd had good days, yes, and I was always very thankful for those days. 

Today was not one of those days. 

I walked in like I normally do. I am often greeted by one of the doctors, often getting asked if this is a pleasant visit, or a visit of opportunity if I'm working a case here. Today was a mandatory visit. I got a call that my mother ran out, then got lost. 

When I first got to her room, I saw it. 

My own mother, for the first time, didn't recognize her own son. 

After what felt like the longest three minutes of my life, I saw the glint in her eyes before she gasped, "Spencer!" I felt my entire body relaxed at the sound of her voice saying my name. But, the feeling of loss was still fresh in my mind. "Honey, what's wrong? You look like you just saw a ghost." Well, she's not wrong. 

"It--It's nothing, Mom," I say, trying to swallow my guilt. "I'm just really glad to see you." I walked up to give her a hug. Something I was almost afraid I wouldn't be able to do just moments earlier. As we pulled away, she said something that completely threw me. 

"So, Spencer...who's the girl?" 

What?!

"Mom! No, there is no...girl, just, um, well, a woman....one who I need to figure out how to bring in with as little casualties as possible. I'm meeting her at a place, similar to a date." 

I knew I could never lie well to my mother. "Oh, well, real date or not, you should come in with a red rose. Remember, it holds a wide variety of meanings, and while she's not an ideal partner, I raised you to be nothing short of a gentleman, Spencer." 

"Yes, ma'am," I said, out of reflex. Mom was right. I made a mental note to mention to Cat in my final email that I would be the man at the table with a red rose. With that thought, I pulled out my phone, which had an email app on it. I opened it, bringing up her latest email. 

Spencer,

Flattery will get you absolutely nowhere, Mr. Merton. Ah, I won't tell you my birthday. But, I will tell you that I am twenty-nine. I'll keep my last name, thank you. I don't care to get married. I'll share that I barely passed high school. Would have dropped out if it wasn't for my foster family, at the time. You must be a smart ass cookie. Probably a good-looking one, too. That sounds...nice. You know I have never been? Looking forward to our date.

~Cat

I felt myself snicker at her choice of words. I swore I even heard my mother snort, too. "What was that?" I asked her. She paused what she was doing, giving me a look. 

"Spencer, dear, if that's her," she said, gesturing towards my phone in my hand, "then either you brought your undercover self here, or you've got bigger problems." As I opened my mouth to retort, Mom got up and gave my shoulder a promising rub before she walked over to the window, leaving me with my email and my thoughts. 

Cat,

This will be my last email. I hope you're as anxious as I have been about our date. Remember, our reservation is at the Q-Town Cafe at 7:00 p.m. I will be the guy looking shy with a red rose place at the end of the table. I do so look forward to finally meeting you in person. 

~Spencer

I pocketed my phone before joining my mom, again. She gave me questioning looks during the remainder of our visit, shooting me her last one as I spent time conversing with one of her doctors. I knew a change in her medication could be just as bad as it could be good, so I complied with trying a few new ones for her. I mentally crossed my fingers, hoping one of them would work. 

As I sat in plane, awaiting in to land back in Quantico, I felt a pain in my chest. Not only had I barely missed the possibility of having my own schizophrenic break, now I had to also worry about possibly getting dementia or Alzheimer's, or worse...both. 

\-------♥-------- 

"Foster care records locked, loaded, and searchable," Garcia said, as she was sitting at my desk, pulling up her desktop via her laptop, since her batcave was taken over by the Dirty Dozen. I was trailing down the stairs, trying for the umpteenth time to tie this damn tie. 

"According to the emails she sent me setting up tonight, her name is Cat," I said, still fidgeting with my tie. "So, let's assume her name is Catherine." 

"Give me more," Garcia said as she hammered away at the keys of her tiny keyboard. 

"Suspicious death for Mom, and her dad most likely went away for manslaughter," I continued, careful not to repeat anything from our letters that didn't pertain to building a profile for her. 

"Keep it coming."

"Rampant abuse, she would have been in a world of pain," as I said that last part outloud, I felt a twinge of guilt. This woman was practically given the perfect blueprint in her childhood to become the unsub she is, today. 

"Sadly, that does not rule out any Catherine's." Garcia gave a seldom frown. 

"Her first kills were most likely in the foster environment," I spoke, trying to draw various assumptions in my head. "Cross-reference all those families that Catherine's went into with accidental deaths of foster dads, and focus on those that have multiple abuse complaints leveled against them."

"Ding."

A picture of her came up on Garcia's screen. She wasn't, as Derek would probably describe as, "drop dead gorgeous," but she did exude a beauty in her that I couldn't quite place. Between seeing her face for the first time, and recalling everything she ever wrote me, both in those emails and our personal letters, I was beginning to almost regret what I had planned to do along with this...date. "Catherine Adams...daughter of Daniel Adams...." 

In less than an hour, I was to meet Cat at the restaurant. I was nervous. Not at all about the 'date.' More so about my tactics in coercing her to willingly allow me to arrest her. Just before I looked to double check my email again, I opened her last letter to me and read it. 

Spencer,

Vacation, huh? Does your loving wife know? I'll admit, I am a little jealous. I would love to go on a vacation with you, Spencer. Something tells me we'd never leave the bedroom. 

If we can make it to dessert, then, yes, maybe I will get to see you being the gentleman you so claim to be. 

Catherine

I double checked myself in the mirror. A ping from my cell told me she had emailed me again. Checking it while inside the taxi, I let out a silent 'fuck.' "Excuse me, Sir? Can you please drive me to a place called Harry & Glenn's, instead?"


	19. Catherine

January 27, 2016

Our pending date was now just weeks away. I knew Dr. Spencer Reid's esteemed team over at the BAU was hot on our tails. I was more than aware of the fact that they caught the Drifter, and the Snowman. I was also painfully aware that I was their endgame. I did have the highest body count, after all. Of course, I would be their final target. I was more than thankful, they hadn't seemed to discover my good friend, the Bomber. Speaking of....I grabbed my phone off the desk and quickly texted her to make sure everything was in place. 

Me📱: hey. you got everything in place, ready for the big night? 

Unknown📱: yes. be sure to tell your boytoy that your date has been moved to Harry & Glenn's. One click of the button, and the entire block will eviscerate. 

Me📱: excellent. now, to break the news to him. 

I got on my laptop, a frown dawning my face as I realize that I only have an email to look forward to this time. He had mentioned before that he would not be writing any more letters. 

Cat,

This will be my last email. I hope you're as anxious as I have been about our date. Remember, our reservation is at the Q-Town Cafe at 7:00 p.m. I will be the guy looking shy with a red rose place at the end of the table. I do so look forward to finally meeting you in person.

~Spencer

I snickered at his clever thought that I would believe his shy demeanor. Well, maybe once I see him in person. Maybe. I decide not to respond right away like I usually do. If he really is FBI, then he can sweat it out a bit. I had more planning to do, like find a dress, and double check all my bases. This will be a Valentine's Day, Spencer Reid will never forget. 

February 14, 2016

Spencer,

So sorry to ask this, last minute, but can we change the venue to Harry & Glenn's? I've always wanted to eat there, and, since you mentioned the red rose, I'd to dress up a little better for you, in a much nicer restaurant for our first date. Shoot me an "okay" to let me know you got this. I am excited to see you, in person, finally. 

~Cat

I waited in anticipation while I put the finishing touches on my makeup. 

Cat,

Is this the beginning of me letting you dictate within this relationship? 

~Spencer

Hook, line, and sinker. Game on, Dr. Reid.


	20. Entropy [Spencer]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All dialogue is taken directly from the Season 11 Episode Entropy.   
> Everything else is written by me. 
> 
> **The following Red Light chapters will be similar**
> 
> **In Date Night, it will be OG dialogue up to the kiss**

February 14, 2016

I arrived at the restaurant, Harry & Glenn's Grille and Bar, in a taxi. I got out, turning around, momentarily, taking in a deep breath, before walking forward towards the entrance. "Hi, table for two, for Spencer," I told the hostess, who then walked me to my table. As we walked, I made eye contact with each member of my team. 

"Here you are," the hostess, said, allowing me to take my seat. 

"Thank you so much," I nodded. 

"You're welcome," she said, walking away. 

I situated myself, trying to get comfortable, moving my glass of water ever so slightly so that it was just right. I took in another deep breath, trying not to psych myself out. Almost forgetting, I placed my hand on the inside of my jacket to grab a red rose, gently placing it on the table, near the outside so that my date would see it when she arrived. I dragged my eyes around the entire restaurant, nervous as to whether or not she would even show up. Just as I had my head turned away, I hear a voice. "Spencer?" I snapped my head back around to see her. A beautiful woman, dressed in a small blue dress, with a fancy suit jacket over it. She held a hand up, as she checked to make sure I was me. 

"Cat?" I countered back. It must be her. I had to be her. 

"Hi!" she smiled with her entire face. For a brief moment, I almost forgot why we were both here in the first place. 

"Hi," I spoke, softly, unsure if she even heard me. 

"Hi," she said, again, letting me know she did, in fact, hear me. I stood up from my spot in the booth. 

"Hello. Hi, hi--" I said, watching her lean in towards me. 

"Nice to finally--" Cat was saying as she opened her arms to give me a hug. The second I felt her hand on my shoulder I leaned back, as far enough as I could manage, away from her. 

"Oh---sorry, I have a, uhh--kind of a germ thing," I choked out. I watched her bring both her arms up in mock offense, smiling at me, anyway. 

"Oh," was all she said. Shit, I cannot mess this up. 

"I'm kind of weird with hu-hugs," I stammered. 

"Sorry," Cat said as she smiled up at me. God, why did she have to go and have a smile like that? I took a deep breath in and out, trying to recompose myself. 

We both just shrugged our shoulders simultaneously. "Can I sit down?" she asks, giving me an incredulous look. 

"Yes, please," I stammered out. "Oh, yeah, of course!" I hoped I didn't sound too weird there. "Sit down," I gestured to the other end of the U shaped booth we were given for our date. I watched as she shrugged her coat off, revealing a thin-layer dress that seemed to fit her body...just right. If there is one thing I know for certain, here, is that both Cat and I are extremely good and being....awkward. She then began eyeing me in an odd way. 

"First time doing this....huh?"

"Yeah...yeah, I mean. Yeah," I said, a bit abruptly. 

"Yeah, I--I still get nervous, too," Cat's voice seemed to sound, relieving. "Really, it wasn't until an hour ago that I was like, wait, we've been trading emails back and forth, but I still have no idea what this guy looks like." 

"Hence the..." I trailed off, gesturing with my hand to the red rose I had told her in my last email, would be waiting for her at our table, tonight. 

"I know. And then I was like, wait, he's going to bring a red rose, so we need to go to a nicer place, which is why I switched the restaurant last-minute---"

"Not--not a problem, at all," I cut her off as I vigorously shook my head. 

"And now I need to change and put something nice on for this place, 'cause I was totally underdressed, and my whole wardrobe makes me look like a Kardashian." Hmmm..maybe the awkwardness isn't exactly an act...she does seem to talk as if that's all she thinks she can do right now. I didn't quite catch what Cat meant by her phrasing, so I just narrowed my eyes at her, as if to tell her, silently, that I have no idea what she just said. "You don't know who that is, do you?" 

"No, oh, yeah, Robert Kardashian," I blurted out, unable to control myself, "Uhh, he got O.J. Simpson off," I looked Cat over, quickly reverting my stare away, again, "You--you don't look his daughters." I shook my head, honestly. She didn't. She looked even better. 

"Yeah, no. I was making a joke. A bad one," Cat deadpanned. Crap. I need to not fuck this up right now. 

"No, it was good. It was a good joke," I hurried, practically verbally falling on my face in that moment. 

"No, it wasn't," she said. 

"It was funny," I insisted. Wow. How are we this awkward and weird in person compared to those letters and even a few of our emails with each other? I guess, not occupying the same space at the same time helps us in being bolder? We both laughed, dryly, hoping to salvage this date, that wasn't going...terribly. 

After a lengthy pause, Cat shook her head, violently, and spoke up. "Can we start over? Hi. I'm Cat," she said, with much more lightness than earlier. It caught me off guard, to say the least. 

"Hi-hi, I'm," I laughed, suddenly feeling especially nervous in front of this woman, "I'm Spencer." 

"It really is nice to meet you, in person, finally," Cat said, sincerely. So sincere, in fact, that I completely believed her. 

"It's nice to meet you," I agreed, as I nodded my head. 

"Tell me a little bit about yourself," she said. Every word in our letters came flooding to my mind. "Do you really have three P.H.d.'s?" 

"Yes. Um, yeah--I uh, yeah, I do. I have three P.H.d's." I paused my way through that statement pretty dryly. 

"What was your favorite book that you read last year?" I had told her I thoroughly enjoyed reading in my spare time. She must have remembered. 

"Um, honestly, I--I've never read a book I didn't love," I said. 

"Tell me about your wife," Cat cut to the chase, leaning forward towards me, her hand holding her head up, an eager look now on her face. I turned around, hoping to not arouse suspicion as to why the two of us were really here. 

"If you don't mind, I'd um, I'd rather not talk about her," I spoke, quietly, hoping Cat would get the hint. She didn't. I told myself before even stepping foot inside, that I was never going to bring her name up. Ever. 

"Might as well get it out in the open, right?" Cat was now slowly fingering her neck just under her hair. "That's why we're here. How long have you been married?" 

"Four years," I lied. If I could have married Maeve the second I knew I fell in love with her, we would have been married over four years, today. 

"When is she due to give birth?" We both knew the answer to that one. Cat was simply making conversation at this point. I cleared my throat a bit before answering. 

"Uh....a couple of--a couple of months." I lied, again. I had told her it was to be only a matter of weeks by our date. I figured, if Cat wanted to do this, here, now, then by all means. I pushed forward towards her, my elbows now on the tablecloth. 

"Should we talk about price now, or..." I'm aware I've already paid her quite a bit in order to get her to wait it out with me, to not meet until now, here, tonight. Cat mimicked me, a smile tugging at her lips. 

"Slow down, tiger. What exactly are we negotiating, here?" I looked around the restaurant, again. 

"You know." 

"I want to hear you say it," Cat spoke, lightly, almost like she were an angel. I scrunched my nose up, trying to muster up the words I knew I was meant to say in this moment. 

"...to have her killed." The second I whispered those words, I was back up in that room, watching Diane shoot Maeve all over again. I shook my head a little at the memory. When I took a chance and brought my eyes to meet Cat's I noticed her teeth caught between her lips. Fuck, that was hot. 

"Let me see your ring." The ring. The pristine piece of jewelry that was on my finger, one that felt weird since the moment I slipped it on in the taxi. One that my team and I agreed would purposely looked brand new. I held my hand out to show her. She didn't look at all satisfied. Cat reached out and touched my hand, tracing the ring with her thumb. "You know what that is?" she scoffed. "A noose," she continued, her fingers still touching my hand. It felt...nice. "Only, it doesn't kill you all at once, it kills you slowly, day by day." If I didn't know any better, I'd actually believe this woman had been married, herself. I gulped. "You ever feel that way?" I nodded, not taking my eyes off her hand. 

"I feel that way all the time." I watched Cat remove her hand and run her fingers through her hair. 

"Take it off," she gestured toward my hand. I looked down at it, then back up to her. 

"Why?" 

"As a sign of your commitment---to me," Cat said, sweetly, a smile gracing her lips. She held her hand out, palm up. I moved to remove the ring in question from my finger and placed it in her waiting hand. She took it and examined it. I knew it was only a matter of time, now. Before we truly got down to business. I was ready. 

"Twenty-four karat?" 

"Hmm," I nodded. 

"Twenty-four k times...four years.." Cat glanced up at me at I nodded my head again, curtly. "means this rings should be dinged and nicked." Cat was moving it around in her hands, clearly seeing it had none of what she mentioned. "But, the sucker is brand new," she releases it on the table. "You're not married." I hear her cock a gun which must be now underneath the table. Pointed directly at me. "Why are we here, Spencer?" 

"We're here because you belong to a network of four hitmen who've been operating in the shadows of the internet." I changed the tone in my voice, hoping to let her know, I was done playing. "You're known as Miss .45. My team and I have been hunting you for months, and I knew that if I boxed you in, I could arrest you with as little resistance as possible."

"Your team being the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI?" I nodded. "You guys are good. You're the only ones that got close to us. But we got kind of close to you, too, didn't we?" I knew that she meant, Garcia, but also, me, and our letters. I watched Cat lean in a little towards me. "Hi, Penelope." After a long pause, she spoke again. "Do you know why I'm so good at my job?"

"Because you kill without compunction or remorse." I was beginning to keep my initial thoughts regarding our letters deep down, away from this conversation. I needed to. For Garcia's sake. 

"That only gets a girl so far in life," Cat mused. She was clearly enjoying this. "No, it's because I think through every potential outcome and then I plan accordingly," she concludes. Her eyes never leave mine for too long at a time. "You see, I didn't walk into your trap, you walked into mine." 

\-------♥-------- 

"Where's your head, Spencer?" Cat says as she slowly begins to move inside the booth, towards me. "What are you thinking about?" I internally hated myself for the smile that spread across my face at that moment. 

"I was thinking about entropy," I answered, as coolly as I could manage. Suddenly, I felt her hand on my mid-section. 

"Mmhmm," Cat murmured, her hand, slowly and meticulously, crawling towards my holster. I felt my breath hitch, slightly, trying hard to continue talking as if that didn't just happen. 

"It's the thermodynamic measure of the degradation of matter and energy in the universe," I said, neither one of us breaking eye contact as her hand continues towards my belt. "To put it in another way---" My voice jumped an octave just as Cat's hand gripped my revolver from its holster, a playful smile growing across her lips. 

"There's your gun." I tried harder to maintain a neutral face as she purposely licked her lips at me. 

"Good evening," we heard our waiter say, just as she pulled my gun towards her, underneath the table. We both looked up at him, oddly playing our parts as a happy couple simply out on a date. 

"Hi," Cat began, almost sounding...out of breath? "Uh, you know what? We've been having so much fun getting to know one another," I glanced over at her, then back to the waiter, "we'll let you know when we're ready, okay? Thank you." He nodded his head, and walked away. "Now that we got that out of the way, will you do me a favor and tell Blondie McBlonderson over there at the bar to disappear?" I turned my head back at her, then let my eyes follow back to the bar where J.J. was sitting. Cat followed, knowing she successfully flushed one agent out. 

"J.J., stand down," I hear Hotch say in my earpiece. J.J. placed her drink on the bar, got out of her seat, and walked past where Cat and I were. She shot me a look I knew meant Be careful. 

"Thanks for playing, sweetie," Cat smiled. I noticed she was now back in her original spot in our booth, across from me. Hotch said something to Rossi, and then spoke directly to me. 

"Reid, do not let her get up from the table." I knew exactly what he meant. 

"Alright, you're in charge," I say directly to Cat. "Tell me what you want, and I'll see if I can get it here for you." 

"Anything I want?" I heard her ask, almost innocently. 

"Anything you want," I repeated. 

"Like a million dollars in unmarked bills," Cat said, her eyes never leaving mine, her face, still neutral, as well, "maybe a plane to Aruba?" I knew she was bating me. And I was letting her. 

"Is that what you want?" I knew it wasn't. She wouldn't be here right now, otherwise. She chose not to answer my question. 

"And you'll say you'll bring it here, but the real plan is to distract me from what is, I'm sure, an impressive law enforcement response just outside that door," Cat says, her eyes scanning the restaurant, again, probably trying to spot the rest of my team. I make it a point to never engage eye contact with any of them. "Is that the plan?" I'm quick to let her think she's right and give in. 

"That's the plan," I say with a natural smile on my face. Hesitantly, I think back to our letters, now wondering how much or little she wrote was actually true. 

"Okay, let's talk. But, let's talk about something interesting, at least," Cat smirked at me. "Tell me about me." I couldn't bring myself to lie to her there. She was, in fact, very interesting...to me.

"You?" I asked, quizzically. I wanted to gauge a reaction out of her. "You're a black widow hitwoman. You specialize in seduction, and you're patient." The irony was not lost on me as to how true I knew my words to be as they left my mouth. "You learn everything you can about the men you're hired to kill, physically, psychologically, emotionally, because you want them in as compromised a position as possible so they don't see it coming when you pull the trigger." The entire time I spoke of her, she looked at me in a way I've always imagined she would look at me...except that she is a psychopath. 

"And when I do it really well, they pull the trigger themselves," Cat said, not missing a beat. I raised my eyebrows up as she spoke. I knew exactly what she meant by the words she didn't say. She glanced down on the table, then looked back up at me. "Give me your phone." 

"Why?" There was no reason for it. 

"Because I know what I want know," her words sounded too much like velvet. "I want to play a game with you. You like games?" 

"I do." I like them even more when I win. And I sure as hell, wasn't about to lose. 

"Do you win?" 

"I always win." Her face resembled that of someone who seemed almost...prideful. And shocked. I smirked. 

"Give it to me." I pulled out my phone, handing it to her. Neither one of us have broken complete eye contact, still. "Okay, here's my game," Cat says as she pulls up a timer app on my phone, setting it for thirty minutes. "You have thirty minutes to answer every question I ask," she looks back up at me, "and if you lie, I'll know. Because I've spent the past ten years of my life studying men and their lies before I kill them." I watched as her eyes grew a shade darker with each word that spit out her mouth, like venom. "Do you believe me?" 

"I do." I nodded, quickly, too. Cat smiled. 

"That was true. You're getting this," she nodded her head as well, albeit, more animated than I was. "Now, here's how we'll know who wins at the end of thirty minutes. If you win, you'll drag me out of here in handcuffs," a quick flash of her small, delicate wrists bound in my FBI issued handcuffs, crossed my mind. "But, if I win, you will escort me out, like a gentleman, to make sure I exit safely. What do you say, Spencer? Think you can win this one?" 

I gestured towards her with my fingers, coming forward myself, as well. "Considering everything you put Garcia, and so many people, through," I whispered, harshly, "you're going to have to shoot me in the face before you walk out of here." Honestly, if anyone was going to shoot anyone else in the face, it would be me...shooting me in the face. We continued to stare at each other, neither one caring to break eye contact. As we backed away, I saw a mischievous smirk take hold of Cat's face. 

"Game on." 

"What do you want to ask me?" 

"How you found me, of course," she muses, almost as if she's trying to piece the pieces back together, herself. "A professional learns from her mistakes," Cat said as she leaned over to press the start button on my phone. I indulged. 

"We got our big break in the case, at the end of last year," I began to explain. I had a feeling, she knew that. "I didn't learn how big, until I came back from some time off." The look in her eyes shifted almost immediately. Shit.

"Why did you take time off?" I thought back to the answer to her question. It was three days ago, I stopped at a local park while on my way to see Morgan and Savannah. She had been helping me out with my mom. As I continued to explain this to Cat, she interrupted me. "Stop!"

"Wha---?"

"You didn't tell me why you took time off." Cat was sure stuck on a question I really didn't want to answer. So, I tried a new tactic. 

"It's not relevant." 

"That's not the game. The game is you answer every question I ask. Is it a secret?" Now, she was starting to push my buttons. And not in the way she talked about in our letters. 

"No," I say as I shook my head. 

"Is it dirty?"

"No." 

"Then tell me," she whined. 

"It's not important to your story," I backtracked. 

"Out of curiosity, is it me you don't want to tell or the people listening in?" I gulped at her words. I tilted my head down to my phone. We've now talked for almost three minutes with her questions. A thought popped inside my head. 

"Is this really how you want to spend your thirty minutes?" I knew I had her. Assuming we profiled her correctly, I knew she's back off. 

"Yes," she said, no hesitation in her voice. Then, I watched her eyes flicker, telling me, I was right. "No...Okay, so you were saying you showed up for work that morning and...." I began telling her where I'd left off. 

"We learned that someone unexpected decided to talk." 

"And who would that be?" 

I began explaining to Cat about Brian Cochran and how he led us to more information on the four hitmen. "...and then, I said, 'who's that?'" I looked up to see the devilish smile that has remained on her face throughout my entire story thus far. 

"Me!" She proudly proclaimed. I nodded. 

"Yes." 

"Wow," Cat spoke, sarcastically, "That was really impressive. Yeah, the way you just made all those brilliant deductions with all that information that was just handed to you on a silver platter," she deadpanned. "Quick question--are you guys really profilers or are you just lucky?" Now, Cat was mocking us. I tilted my head once more, cracking a couple of tense aches in my neck. "Because this, what I'm about to say--" she clears her throat, "is profiling." 

I had an inkling where she was going with this. I certainly did not want to be right this time. "The reason you took time off from work," Cat started. I knew it. I didn't want to go there. I still had time. My mother still had time. "was to deal with the same girl who broke your heart." Well, at least she was far off base with that assumption. I shook my head, again, at her. 

"No." 

"The death of a parent, then." Her words were now cutting me like a sharp knife with the edge dipped in a poison I hated to admit I wanted a taste of. I looked away, momentarily. She clocked it. 

"Nope." 

"Ah! Hello, I'm getting close," Cat's voice softened. "It's Mom or Dad in the Billiard room with the candlestick?" I kept my gaze on her, not budging even an inch if I could help it. "Oh, you're mad at me, aren't you?" I kept my facial expression neutral. 

"No. Not even a little bit." 

"Yes, you are," Cat crooned. "I can tell." She still managed to keep that Cheshire cat smile permanently sealed to her lips. I hated myself for still noticing it. The thought alone, was causing me to feel some pent up anger slowly reach the surface. 

"No offense, but you're not really worth getting angry at." I lied right through my clenched teeth. For a moment, I swore I saw what looked an awful lot like hurt in her eyes. I felt a sting of guilt ripple thru me at the thought. She shook it off and got back to business. 

"So you figured out what the four of us did, and then, what?" Her confidence was back in full force and I stumbled in trying to answer her question. 

"We profiled that you operated as spokes on a wheel. Somehow it had to be centralized. How you got jobs, who paid you. Somebody did all of that for you."

"You found the Snowman, didn't you?" I continued telling her exactly how we came across that high school aged kid, the one Garcia found through the Dirty Dozen. I continued to explain how we found their elusive Snowman through a flash drive that we obtained from Cochran. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," Cat interrupted me. "What just happened there?" 

"When we arrested Cochran, we found a flash drive, one that gave us a specific shadow of the dark net, one we didn't even know existed." I caught the small smirk that spread throughout her face. She knew just as well as I did that she was found without the need of the flash drive. I then proceed to tell Cat that since the Snowman was profiled to be just an adolescent, it made it all the more easy for Garcia to track him and silently let him know he'd been caught. 

"Garcia used it to find the website that the Snowman set up for all of you. Once we had the website, we had geography, specifically, the safe house you were keeping him in. So, we waited until the shift change, when we knew we could take two of you down at once." 

Cat kept her composure surprisingly well. She seemed truly intrigued with just how we narrowed her and the rest of the hitmen, revealing every slight mistake that was made. Without verbally addressing it, we both knew that our exchanged emails and letters contributed to bringing down the network, too. "Well, well, well. You took the Chemist and the Sniper out of commission, huh?" Even I could hear the sarcasm dripping off her tongue. 

"Did you know?" I asked, already knowing the answer. Well, th honest one, anyway. Not that I expected Cat to be as honest with me ans she clearly expected in return. 

"I knew something was off," was all she said. "They didn't bid on some contracts, and this isn't the kind of job where you get to take time off to be with your...." Shit. Good one, Cat. Nice segue way. She sucked in some air, narrowing her eyes at me, like that action alone would draw the truth from my being. Apparently, that was entirely plausible. "...mother?" Her voice got loud as my face gave me away. "Is it your mom? It's gotta be your mom." I tried to keep my face in a neutral tight-lipped smile. I very discreetly nodded, batting my eyes her way. "Why'd you take time off from the F.B.I.?" 

"I'm not gonna tell you," I said, finding a stern tone within my voice. 

"Spencer," Cat shot back, mirroring my tone. "Why did you take time off from the F.B.I.?" she repeated her words, enunciating at just the right places. I could tell she didn't particularly enjoy repeating herself. I was baiting her....and I liked it. 

"You can ask me as many times as you want," I stared her down, "and you can continue to waste your time, but I'm still not gonna tell you." 

"Then you're cheating, and I don't like cheaters," Cat was quick to pounce on that. 

"You don't get everything you want just because you're pointing a gun at me under a table." I was nearing my wits end. "You're not the first killer to point a gun at me, you're not even the first woman to point a gun at me." I watched her face fall, taking in every word I just threw at her. "Sorry." I wasn't . Not at all, not if I'm being honest. 

"You're really gonna take this all the way, aren't you?" Cat asked me, smirking, once more. 

"Yeah," I nodded. 

"So am I. Look at my face. Does it look like I'm bluffing?"

"I know you're not bluffing," I said, quickly. I heard Hotch and Rossi coerce to make a move, but I wanted to somehow let them know I was handling it. I may be the resident genius, but I know I can handle myself in a seemingly undercover situation, too. 

"I'm gonna ask you once more time," she says, as she slowly moves back towards where I'm sitting. My eyes widened, unsure where she was going with this, both verbally and physically. "Before you say no, I want you to consider something.." Cat wraps her hand around my tie, right over the microphone that had been in place during the entirety of our date, thus far. As soon as I heard confirmation come from Garcia, I knew Cat had muffled the mike, successfully. I watched her eyes narrow past me. "I'll kill the fed walking towards me first." Cat cocked her eye up at me, telling me she meant her every word. 

\-------♥-------- 

"A stationary target's easier to hit," Cat continued, "after that, it's a free-fire zone." I didn't have to look to know that no matter who it was, I knew that she knew I would never willingly let her shoot at any of my family. 

"Fine, I'll tell you," I spoke, hearing it come out harshly. 

"Sorry, what was th---?" 

"I'll tell you!" Cat brought her hand up to her chin, resting her elbow on the table, acting as if I'd just promised her to read her favorite bedtime story. "Rossi, stand down." I took a hunch, based on the conversation I had over heard from earlier. I turned around so that he could look me right in the eye. "Please." I watched his eyes flicker from mine to Cat's. I could only imagine the shit-eating grin she must be giving him right now. We watched Rossi walk away, most likely meeting up with J.J...wherever that was. 

I turned my head back, not meeting Cat's gaze. Instead, I concentrated all too hard at the stack of properly folded napkins that had been placed in front of us, at some point. I was angry, now. I know I told her she wasn't worth it, but the feeling was now burning inside me. I caught her slouching back, keeping her eyes on me. 

I began nervously fixing my tie, recalling how it felt to feel her hand, even just temporarily, touch my chest. I took a couple of deep breaths, knowing there was no way Cat was going let me talk my way out of giving her the reason behind my requested extended time off to be with my mother. "My mom has schizophrenia, and the doctor has changed her medication, which seemed to agitate her, so I went to the treatment center to help her," I said, softly thru gritted teeth. 

"That's it?" That wasn't it. I knew that was far from it. I half-hoped that Cat wouldn't sense that I had just lied, again. 

"You just risked your life over Mommy's pills?" Her tone told me she barely believed me, if even that. I nodded, not too quickly, hoping she'd get on with her questions that didn't concern my mother. 

"It's the truth." Lie. I watched her eyes search mine, satisfaction slowly appearing across her face. 

"It's part of the truth." Shit. "You're holding something back. Here's what I'm going to do." Cat reaches out towards my phone. "I'm going to penalize you by adding ten minutes." I kept my eyes fixated on her, trying hard to read her, if I even could. "And keep in mind, that the only reason you're not dead right now is because I did learn something important." I scrunched my face up at that. 

"Oh really, what's that?" 

"Your backup, I flushed them out." Cat said, seemingly so proud of herself. So proud that I had to hide the smirk that threatened to grow across my terrible attempt at a stoic face, knowing that Morgan and Lewis were still sat somewhere close. "It's just you and me, now." 

"So, when we left off, the score was you had two of our guys and the Snowman," Cat said, clearly satisfied with my answer about my mom, for the time being. I mentally let out a breath, knowing if Cat had her way, I'd need to suck it back in. "You must have thought you were home free." There's her natural sarcasm, again. 

"No. If anything, the case was harder," I told her. I brought up just how much intel their Snowman guy gave up in a heartbeat, including that the Bomber was the only one of them who never took a stab at baby-sitting him up at the cabin. "But first, we had to get the data that we needed from the Snowman. From that, we could start to build the profile that would lead us to you. When we knew what we were looking for, the pattern was obvious." 

I went on to tell Cat all about how we discovered she had a penchant for choosing men who wanted to kill their wives. I let her know we discovered that she did, in fact kill the men who originally hired her, something she lied to me about in our emails. I further explained how I volunteered myself to pretend to be just the kind of client that would lure her out of hiding. A married man who wanted his pregnant wife dead. I mentioned how Hotch was quick to point out the very obvious flaw in my plan. Me. 

"You. You're the flaw," Cat deduced. "You're not married, and you don't have children." 

"I'm the person on my team that's the closest to your age, and..I knew that if I lost control of the situation, you'd be more likely to negotiate with a peer." 

"You have zero control here. None. I outflanked you from the beginning." Now, this was the game I was hoping we'd get to play. 

"Some of your moves were pretty obvious," I countered. Which, they were. Like the location. 

"Such as?" Her boredom was seeping through, I swore some of it began dripping onto me. 

"Such as...showing up armed, such as...changing the venue at the last moment." I could have gone on more, but she stopped me. 

"I needed a restaurant full of innocents in case this was a trap." In case this was a trap? She told me as such that I was caught in her trap, not the other way around. 

"If you really suspected this was a trap, then why show up at all?" It was a daring question, I know, but I couldn't stop my tongue from slipping the words out of my mouth. "Even when you first laid eyes on me," I said, recalling her words from one of her letters, "from the bar, from outside, from wherever you were, you should have seen through me, and kept on moving, but you didn't." She could have. She didn't. Why didn't she? Could those letters have been real? At the same time that I wished they were, I wanted to hear Cat say they were all lies. "You couldn't." I felt bolder, knowing, seeing just how much I was beginning to get under her skin. She should be more than aware she was having the same effect on me. 

"Because you can't get to the man you really want to hurt, so you need to hurt any man who reminds you of him." Cat simply stared back at me. I couldn't tell if she was losing her stance with me, or if I was simply digging my own hole, here. 

"That's kind of boilerplate psychology, isn't it? I'm just another girl with daddy issues." 

"You'd be surprised how many killers do what they do because of their parents," I found myself saying. I was...sympathizing with her. I mentally slapped myself after a brief moment. Then, I had an idea. "If it's so...boilerplate, why don't we test that theory?" I challenged her. If Cat was anything like the woman who was sharing such intricate details as she had with me in those letters, she couldn't say no to a challenge anymore than I could. "How hard did you look for him?" The look in her eyes told me she wasn't expecting that. 

"Very hard." Her eyes were burning my entire skull wide open. 

"And how disappointed were you when you realized that you will never find him?" I could see I was getting to her. She was cracking in front of me. "You needed some other outlet for your rage, and for a while this worked, but it also tripped you up." After taking a moment of silence, I asked her a question. "Can I tell you a little secret?" I dared to lean in a little closer to her, licking my lips in the process. "Everything eventually falls apart. The trick is accepting when it's over." For what felt like more than a minute, we simply stared at each other. I could see her walls crashing down, but not entirely. The alarm on the stopwatch app on my phone went off. 

beep-beep-beep

"Except, it ain't over, is it?" Cat's eyes darted all over the restaurant. She then dared a look of omniscience towards me. 

"Do you really think I'm just gonna let you walk out of here?" I looked at her like she was insane. Cat instantly sat up in her spot, eyes narrowing on mine. 

"You profiled so much about me, except, you forgot to ask the most important question. Why would I make you sit here for thirty minutes?" Just as the question caused the wheels in my head to turn, my mouth spoke first.

"Because you're stalling." I could even hear the pained worry heaving up my throat. 

"Then you don't know me at all," Cat purred, her voice as silky as I had imagined it would be, reading her letters in private. "Do you think I'd show up here without an escape plan?" Had I? Did we? I squinted back at her. "Or is that what just another girl with daddy issues would do?" 

"Maybe, if you hadn't fallen victim to your own gender bias---and yes, all men have gender bias, even you, Doctor Reid--you would have recognized that your entire strategy was based on one faulty detail." My entire body stiffened with each word she said. "Can you see it?" I couldn't see it. And something told me she knew that was my answer. Then I remembered something the Snowman had said...They like being independent contractors, so they always worked jobs separately. That's when it clicked. 

"You're not here alone."

"And my partner? Less paranoid than you think." Partner. Oh, no. The only other hitman we haven't been able to track was....the Bomber. 

"You planted a bomb in the building." 

"I didn't," Cat was quick to suss out. "My job was to keep your entire team focused on us, so he could do what he does best." 

"There are innocent people here." My voice began to panic. And rightfully so. 

"Yes, there are," Cat said, as if reassuring me. "So let me remind you what we're playing for. Not only will I walk out of here, but you will make sure I leave safely." I hated her right now. I hated Catherine Adams. I hated how defeated she had successfully made me feel. I have to let her win to save every innocent life within this entire block, people who had no idea what was even going down right now between us. "And from where I'm sitting..." she's already talking like she won. "It looks like I've won." 

\-------♥-------- 

"You need to pay attention to this part." I knew. I was going to have to suck it up and politely escort the woman out. Like a fucking gentleman. Like hell, I will. I needed to think..and fast. "I'm going to tell you the terms of my victory." Oh, this ought to be good. "I want you to move all of your backup away from this building. If I walk out of here, and I see one cop, I will incinerate us all." 

"I can't do that--"

"Spencer---"

"It's not me. What you're asking takes time." I was flat out stalling at this point. I knew she could tell. But, what other choice did I really have? Cat leaned forward, gripping my tie, much like she had before, only this time, she spoke directing into the mike. 

"This is to whoever's in charge," she said, looking back up at me. "Unless you guys want to be responsible for the biggest F.B.I. disaster since Waco, you will back off now." Cat shoved my tie down, as if she was trying to hide it under my jacket. She leaned in closer than she ever had before, whispering something I almost didn't catch. "Watch this." 

As I figured she predicted, waiters began shuffling out of the kitchen, calmly altering the patrons to quietly exit the building as swiftly as possible. "Look at that. There they go." 

"All we wanna do---"

"Minimize the collateral damage, I get it," Cat cut me off. Her entire being softened in front of me. For a brief moment, she almost looked like a shy woman out of her first date in...forever. "I'm not mad. It'll give me the cover I need to slip out. I just need to know it's clear, so do me a favor, and tell your boss that nobody leaves until its safe for me to." I noticed her hand was inches away from my back, her arm, resting on the back on of the booth. 

"You have to let her go." I heard Hotch tell me over the earpiece. I had something, a piece of a puzzle I knew she never believed she would ever solve. That was my ticket. 

"Well?" I was mentally battling myself between my gut and my boss' words. "Spencer..." I could hear her impatience coming off in waves. God, the woman clearly never lets a date think. After making in internal decision only I was aware of, I muttered the words she had wanted me to say all along since she told us about the bomb. 

"You can leave." It took Cat less than ten seconds to scootch her way back to the other side of the booth, grabbing her jacket and purse in the process. I gave her an additional moment to see if I was bluffing. Just as she started to turn towards the doors and walk out, I spoke again. "But you won't." That stopped her in her tracks. 

"I'm sorry?" 

"Double or nothing, I can get you to sit back down." I knew Hotch and everyone else on the team was listening, and frankly, I didn't care. I didn't lie to Cat when I said that I always win. And I wasn't going to start that shit tonight. 

"Wow," she laughed. "Now, you're stalling," she said, as if she hadn't believed I was doing just that earlier. 

"You played your trump card, but, I have one, too." Yeah, sure, she threw us for quite the loop with the bomb card. I don't doubt she was ever bluffing on that front, but I need to act like I did. 

"Thanks for dinner," Cat said, coldly, a hint of a smile played on her lips. "I had fun," she deadpanned, looking just above my head. She turned around again, this time looking as if she no intention whatsoever of facing me, again. I had to change that. 

"I found your father." Ah, yes. She said so, herself, that she was a daddy's girl. I needed to use that to my advantage. Cat halfway turned, her face looked red and splotchy. Almost like she was going to cry. 

"No, you didn't." She sounded angry. 

"Look at my face? Am I bluffing?" This was the moment. This was the pivotal moment that would cement my relationship with this woman. This was me beating her at her own game. And I knew I was going to love every minute of it. "I'll tell you where he is. But you need to sit back down and listen to the rest of my story." Just like I predicted, Cat did see right through me....almost. 

"No, tell me now. Or I'll---"

"Detonate the bomb?" I asked her, incredulously. "You're not going to do that, Cat, because then you won't learn anything." Hook, line, and now, sinker. Two can play this game, Cat. Trust me. "You said you were good at your job, because you think through every outcome. Well, guess what---so do I." I watched Cat glance back between me and the door. Then, without hesitation, she shoved herself down into the booth, looking more irritated than ever. 

Alright." I leaned towards her, placing both my arms on the table between us. "Finish the story." 

"To prepare for this dinner, I had to learn everything about you, starting with your real name." Thinking back to that, I recalled just how many times I lied, saying that I didn't know her last name. I didn't buy for even a second that she still believed my last name was Merton. "...Catherine Adams, daughter of Daniel Adams, who did, in fact, leave the country in 1987, but returned in 2012. Based on confidential records in rehabs and sober living houses, which, in turn, pointed us to flophouses and soup kitchens. He couldn't put twenty-four hours together, sober. And, you can probably imagine my surprise when I discovered that he actually lives right here in D.C." I had her. I clocked every milometer of her face, watching it tense and tightened with every syllable I spoke. 

"Where?" Her voice was no longer confident. No, she was scared. Scared and angry that an F.B.I. agent figured out in a matter of months, what she had been trying to do for years. I had her. 

"It's not that simple." I was perpetually surprised at myself for maintaining to composure my face appeared to reflect. "He was in bad shape when I found him." I went on to illustrate to Cat a picture of a homeless man who, when shown her picture, couldn't recognize her for the life of him. 

"He...didn't remember me?" I saw a single tear fall, hitting her cheek just before she wiped it off. 

"The alcoholism shredded his brain. I'm sorry," I said. As I said it, I meant it. I was truly sorry that she had to live through her childhood. That it wasn't one most of us either also imagined it to be, or actually, selfishly got to live. 

"You're not sorry," Cat cried. The way she looked at me, it might as well have been venom falling down her face. "Sorry is what people say when they don't understand." She was right. I did understand. I understood a little too well. Sure, I was just past the age where the majority of signs of schizophrenia usually develop, but now, I had an entirely new mind-alternating fear to be afraid of also inheriting from my mother. Alzheimer's. "....wait." 

Gone were the tears she cried for her father. In their place was a twisted smirk. I slipped up. I let out a crucial part of the one thing I didn't want not only her, but my entire team to hear. "Your mother---tell me." Now, all I felt like doing was crying. 

"Is--is this part of the game?" I heard my voice crack. 

"No," Cat shook her head. "The game's over." 

"When I looked at her medical chart, it....didn't make any sense. The medication that they gave her should have been helping, but I couldn't figure out what was making her so angry. So...I uh, I went to see her." I paused, thinking back to when I had let Cat know that I wouldn't be able to read her letters for about a month. "The moment I walked into her room, I saw it." My emotions were threatening to get the better of me. I bit my lip, trying hard to keep my tormented mind at bay. "For three seconds, she didn't know who I was." 

Cat gave just a hint of sympathy in her stature, clearly not wanting to show it. "I um, I had her tested that morning, and I found out that night, that she had early onset of dementia. Most likely Alzheimer's." 

"Did you test yourself?" Her words were laced with a vulnerability I hadn't seen in her much at all this evening. She was slowly letting her walls down. We were truly two broken people on opposing ends of a morality coin. I bowed my head, trying not to show Cat anymore than she's already seen. "No, you didn't. You were too scared."

"I thought I dodged a bullet when I turned thirty and didn't have a schizophrenic break like her, but, uh, this is somehow bigger and scarier because I can actually see it happening. All the memories that we used to share....are just dying." 

Right now, I didn't want Cat Adams to be a hitwoman. I wish she didn't have a rap sheet longer than any other criminal I've ever come up against. I wanted her to be real, and attainable. I couldn't open up to any of my team members, not even Morgan or J.J. but here I was, pouring out my feelings to a fucking UNSUB! 

"I can't stop it. I can't help her. All I can do is find people that I can help." Cat nodded, assuming she understood my hidden meaning. 

"Is that really why you showed up tonight? To help me? Our voices were quiet. Barely above a whisper. Cat leaned against the table between us, looking me dead in the eyes. "Do you know how many men have told me that they wanted to help me?" I knew when she asked that of me, I was thrown in there with the rest of them. She tilted her head a little, her voice cracking, much like my face. "How do you think that worked out for them?" 

\-------♥-------- 

"You're right, you don't need my help. You don't need anyone's help. You are completely in control." I spouted out everything and anything I could think of to make her think that she had the upper hand. 

"Oohhh! Ooooohhhh!" 

Cat and I both turned our heads towards where the noise was coming from. I caught Morgan and Lewis apprehending a woman, whom I'm guessing is the Bomber. Cat's silent partner. An internal smile crossed my lips, knowing our game was going to come to an end, soon. If I'm being honest with myself, a very small part of me was a little sad. 

When the fight between Morgan and the Bomber escalated, Cat took the opportunity to launch out of her spot in the booth, pulling her gun out and pointing it directly at me. I complied, getting up from my spot as well, Cat having one arm around me while the other had the gun pointed directly at my head. 

"F.B.!.! Everybody stay calm, please," Morgan announced, trying to maintain an all calm. 

"We're going to be smart about this, and talk it out, aren't we, Cat?" Lewis called out, while holding the Bomber in as good a grip as she could manage. 

"That's up to you," Cat responded, moving the gun around like it was a prop. 

"Get everyone out of here," I spoke up. 

"Move!" Lewis verbally ushered the remainder of patrons who had been still stuck inside the restaurant. 

"Morgan, you two," I scolded him. Tara had to stay, she had the Bomber, but Morgan had no one, he had Savannah and a son on the way. He didn't deserve to be in a position to get blown up if I could help it. 

"I'm not going anywhere," my best friend called out. 

"Guess we're right back where we started," Cat mused, barely grazing my chin with the bullet end of the gun. I glanced over at her then back at Morgan. "You and me with a gun." 

"Reid, it's time," Morgan sighed at me. I knew he had been listening to the bogus story I spun to Cat about her father. Quickly thinking, I played into where I hope he was going. 

No," I said, sternly. 

"We don't have a choice, we have to do it." 

"Do what?" Got her. 

"Morgan, shut up!" 

"There's one thing he hasn't told you, yet," Morgan speculated. 

"That's not true, he's lying. Don't listen to him," I pleaded to Cat. I almost hated how easy it seemed to play into her feelings, but this was the needle in the haystack of needles I needed. 

"What haven't you told me?" 

"Nothing! I've told you--"

"What do I not know?!"

"Nothing! Nothing!" 

"We brought your father here," Morgan cleared the air. I sighed, heavily. I looked right at Morgan, one I hoped Cat was taking in, making her believe Morgan's words even moreso. 

"Here?" Cat's voice was breaking, her grip on the gun, faltering. "He's here." By this time, I huffed once more, alluding more to the suspicious fact that we had her father here this entire time. It was all the more we needed to finish reeling her in. 

"He's right outside," Morgan said, calmly to Cat. "Reid thought he needed every bargaining chip he could get." I watched Cat's eyes flicker again at the mention of my real name. 

"Morgan, I'm begging you, don't. Don't." Now, I was probably over selling it. 

"Every bargaining chip he could get," Morgan repeated, enunciating each word that I'm sure rang throughout Cat's ears. "To convince you to do the right thing." 

"How is this the right thing?" Cat asked, moving the weapon around slowly, her finger still on the trigger. 

"Your father killed your mother. And there's no statue of limitations on murder, so you really need to think about your options right now. You shoot him, I will kill you. Or, if you surrender, you will live to testify against your father." 

"That's not good enough," Cat shot back at Morgan. 

"We can arrange it for the two of you to drive into custody together, and then you can remind him of who you are."

"If you give her this, she wins. Don't do it," I said. Okay, now I was well and truly laying it on too thick. We just needed her to drop the gun on me, and follow Morgan out the door. 

"Kid, I am trying to save your life," Morgan snapped at me. Pressure sure is a real thing, especially when spinning a tale. "Now let me do that." We hear some faint beeping coming from outside. "They're bringing him in right now." I kept my face looking as if I am confidently upset that have lost our little game. If I'm being honest with myself, there is a small percentage pf that that is actually true. 

"You're really upset about this, aren't you?" 

"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" Morgan tried to drag Cat's attention off me as best he could. "A chance to finally hurt the man who deserves it?" 

"They all deserve it," Cat snapped back. 

"He deserves it the most." Neither Morgan or I had much left in our arsenal to convince Cat to take the bait. All I could do at that point was solemnly shake my head in utter defeat. 

"Only if Spencer escorts me out," Cat smiled, devilishly up at me. I took a proper moment to think it over. 

"Deal." In a flash, Cat dropped the gun on the floor in front of us, towards Morgan. She moved her arm from around my waist to just around my upper arm. Morgan, with his gun aimed on Cat, moved slowly forward to grab her weapon. He pulled out his handcuffs after that, handing them to me. I grabbed Cat's wrist, latching the metal in place around it. Once I had her bound, I grabbed onto the metal resting between her wrists. I hated how nice it felt to touch her skin. But, oh god, did it feel nice. 

\-------♥-------- 

I walked Cat outside the double doors of Harry and Glenn's. Not even two seconds after, she stops. "Wait." In front of us is a police armored car, with Cat's father inside. She knows this. She believes this. I peered down at her and her face shows nothing but...longing. I blinked my eyes a few times, clearing my throat. Cat turns to me, causing me to look back at her. "Okay, I'm ready." Together, we walk to the car. Morgan and I each open a side of the doors. The second Cat sees that it's empty, the facade drops, like a puddle in water. 

Cat scoffs as I walk her up inside. I practically slam her down on the cold metal, taking her handcuffed wrists and connecting them to the inside of the car. "You lied to me," she sobs. If only she knew she how much was a lie, and how much was real. 

"If it makes you feel any better, I really---I did look for him," I pleaded. "But, I couldn't find him, so, uh, yeah, I did make it all up." 

Cat scoffs once more. "Not all of it. You don't pull a story about a parent losing her memory out of nowhere. Your mother and the Alzheimer's, that's true." I still managed to keep eye contact with her. She slowly widened her gaze. "I won." I decided to tempt my luck a bit. 

"How so?" 

"Because, I will get out of here."

"Yeah, in twenty years, maybe, if you're lucky." 

"Yeah, that's fine. You know why? Because...in twenty years I'll remember your name, but you won't remember mine." I looked at her longer, practically burning a hole right between her eyes. I quickly stood up and moved out of the van in a heartbeat. 

\-------♥-------- 

After witnessing the fiasco over at the Morgan residence, and a much needed hug from the best brother a man could ever ask for, I found myself at a park, looking at an empty swing. Was Cat right? Would I really not remember her? I scoffed as I sat down and began slowly pushing off the dirt beneath my shoes. Something tells me I couldn't forget that woman, no matter how hard I tried, Alzheimer's or not.


	21. Entropy [Catherine]

February 14, 2016

Sharon and I arrived over an hour before I was due to find my date. I assumed he'd be punctual and I wanted to make sure I could determine every single one of his teammates before our waiter could even ask us if we wanted more water. 

We were both sat at the bar, occasionally letting our eyes drift around the restaurant. To make sure none of them could figure us out before my date even got started, we texted who we assumed were part of the BAU. 

Sharon📱: Blonde near us at the bar

Me📱: Older dude by himself in a booth

Sharon📱: Couple at the booth in the corner

Me📱: oh shit. there he is. 

I nudged her shoulder as I heard a man's voice say, "Hi, table for two, for Spencer." That's him. My date. The man I've been emailing for months, and writing scandalous letters to for half as long. Sharon side-eyed me as I slinked off my seat and walked around, acting as if I had just arrived. I stopped short of the hostess' table, being in perfect view of him. Of Spencer. 

"Here you are," I heard the hostess say, slowly walking back up, towards me. 

"Hi, do you have a reservation?" 

I glanced over at him one more time, noting his nervousness as he gently placed the red rose carefully on the table, as he promised. I could help but smile at the simple gesture. "Yes, uh, should be under Spencer." The hostess smiled and grabbed me a menu before gesturing for me to follow her towards our table. I silently thanked her as she placed the menu on the table then walked away. I looked at him for a brief moment. His official photo did not do him near enough justice. "Spencer?" I asked, questionably, pretending not to know exactly what he looked like. He snapped his head in my direction, a chuckle escaping those pretty lips of his. He clearly gave me a once over as I raised my hand in protest.

"Cat?" Spencer questioned. His face made me ponder if he, too, had looked me up, past what we shared over the past eight months. 

"Hi!" I smiled sweetly at him. 

"Hi," he whispered. 

"Hi," I repeated, as I watched him unfold himself from the booth. My god, he's tall. 

"Hello. Hi, hi--" Spencer mumbled. I felt things were treading on the awkward front, so I leaned in to hug him, hoping he would accept the kind gesture before we sat down and got to business. 

"Nice to finally--" Before I could even feel the warmth of his body heat underneath his shoulder where I barely grazed him, he shot back, almost appalled. 

"Oh---sorry, I have a, uhh--kind of a germ thing," Spencer coughed, clearly offended. I threw both hands up this time, showing him that I meant nothing by it. He gave me a weary look, anyway. 

"Oh," I whispered. I titled my head at him, slightly. 

"I'm kind of weird with hu-hugs," he said.

"Sorry," I said, smiling. I caught Spencer falter in front of me. It made me feel good, knowing I seem to cast the desired effect on him. Now, I just had to determine if I was affecting Spencer Merton, or Dr. Spencer Reid. 

"Can I sit down?" I asked him, suddenly slightly self-conscious of myself. Or, at least, pretending to be. 

"Yes, please," he stuttered. "Oh, yeah, of course!" I slowly lowered myself into the booth opposite from him. I was going to need to change that, soon. "Sit down." I pulled my jacket off, slowly, keeping eye contact with Spencer the entire time. The poor man looked like he might as well have been drooling. I gave him a sympathetic look before clearing my throat. 

"First time doing this....huh?"

"Yeah...yeah, I mean. Yeah." 

"Yeah, I--I still get nervous, too," I sighed, hoping to get a better read on him. "Really, it wasn't until an hour ago that I was like, wait, we've been trading emails back and forth, but I still have no idea what this guy looks like." I bit the inside of my cheek at that one. I've known for a couple months now. However, in person, I kept flipping through his letters in my mind. I shrugged those thoughts away. Now was not the time. 

"Hence the..." his voice cracked, showing off the red rose still place on the table between us. 

"I know. And then I was like, wait, he's going to bring a red rose, so we need to go to a nicer place, which is why I switched the restaurant last-minute---"

"Not--not a problem, at all," Spencer cut in, seemingly growing more confident with each passing minute. 

"And now I need to change and put something nice on for this place, 'cause I was totally underdressed, and my whole wardrobe makes me look like a Kardashian." A Kardashian? Wow, Cat...subtle. I held my breath as I scanned Spencer's face. He looked like he kind of knew who I was referring to, but, at the same time, confusion was a red as could be on his dorky-looking face. "You don't know who that is, do you?"

"No, oh, yeah, Robert Kardashian," he sputtered. So, I guess the genius does know pointless information. "Uhh, he got O.J. Simpson off," I caught him eyeing me some more, "You--you don't look his daughters." I laughed a little as he shook his head. 

"Yeah, no. I was making a joke. A bad one," I insisted. Man, could this date get any more awkward?

"No, it was good. It was a good joke," Spencer's voice squeaked. 

"No, it wasn't."

"It was funny," Spencer joked. We allowed an awkward silence to set in between us. After too much time had passed, I shook my head, deciding this trainwreck needed a reboot. "Can we start over? Hi. I'm Cat," I smiled, this time not even bothering with shaking his hand, let alone hugging. 

"Hi-hi, I'm," Spencer stuttered, clearly taken aback by my change in demeanor, "I'm Spencer."

"It really is nice to meet you, in person, finally," I smiled, widely at him, beaming so bright I thought I would burst. 

"It's nice to meet you." 

"Tell me a little bit about yourself," I egged him on, wanting to break the ice a little more. "Do you really have three P.H.d.'s?"

"Yes. Um, yeah--I uh, yeah, I do. I have three P.H.d's." 

"What was your favorite book that you read last year?" I watched as a sincere smile spread throughout his face. Must not be a question he gets asked often. 

"Um, honestly, I--I've never read a book I didn't love."

"Tell me about your wife," I mused, taking my hands and propping my head up with them. I gave him my most intriguing stare, pretending to be so infatuated by his presence.

"If you don't mind, I'd um, I'd rather not talk about her," Spencer whispered, giving me a look that said he clearly wasn't done with our pretend date just yet. Well, I was, hence the question. 

"Might as well get it out in the open, right?" I glared at him.. "That's why we're here. How long have you been married?"

"Four years," he said, without even an inkling of hesitation. I figured his "wife" must have been a very real woman in his life to some degree. I'm sure I'll find out, eventually. 

"When is she due to give birth?" 

"Uh....a couple of--a couple of months." Spencer lied. Well, I knew he was lying about having a wife, let alone a pregnant wife. Fairly easy to slip up when most of your story is fabricated. 

"Should we talk about price now, or..." Now, he was stalling. Why, I didn't exactly know. I quickly scanned the room again, noting any new faces I hadn't caught from before. None. Good. 

"Slow down, tiger. What exactly are we negotiating, here?" Spencer glanced around as well. 

"You know."

"I want to hear you say it," I said, lightly trailing my eyes down his face, his neck, his chest, his---

"...to have her killed." I almost missed his words, they were so quiet. I watched him shake his head slightly, almost as if he was shaking away the notion of his wife dying. You can't fake pain like that. Hmmm....

"Let me see your ring." Spencer eyed me for a second before placing his left hand in front of me. I looked down at the gold piece hugging his third finger. "You know what that is? A noose," I said, a little dazed as I strategically skimmed his hand with my fingers, imagining the betrayal he pretended to have. "Only, it doesn't kill you all at once, it kills you slowly, day by day." I carefully watched for any changes in his face, his body, especially his eyes. "You ever feel that way?" Spencer nodded, sheepishly. 

"I feel that way all the time." 

"Take it off," I said, simply, pointing to the ring on his finger. 

"Why?"

"As a sign of your commitment---to me," I said, giving him my best wistful smile, as he removed it and placed it gently in my palm. For a moment, just as his fingertips grazed the skin on my hand, I felt a shock. 

"Twenty-four karat?"

"Hmm," Spencer nodded in response. 

"Twenty-four k times...four years.." I murmured as I twirled his ring around my fingers. "means this rings should be dinged and nicked." Noting that it couldn't more than a few days old, probably purchased from a jeweler who does special business with the FBI. "But, the sucker is brand new," I say as I dropped it on the table between us. "You're not married." I pulled my gun I had kept in the seat of the booth, wondering why a genius FBI agent, such as himself, had missed that. How did he and his entire team of profilers miss the obvious? I cocked it, watching his ears perk up at the familiar sound. I was now pointing it directing at his crotch from underneath the table. "Why are we here, Spencer?"

"We're here because you belong to a network of four hitmen who've been operating in the shadows of the internet." Damn. His voice dropped an octave as it came out in a loud whisper. "You're known as Miss .45. My team and I have been hunting you for months, and I knew that if I boxed you in, I could arrest you with as little resistance as possible."

"Your team being the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI?" Spencer nodded. "You guys are good. You're the only ones that got close to us. But we got kind of close to you, too, didn't we?" I leaned in towards Spencer, knowing full well that the man had a mic underneath his tie. "Hi, Penelope." I slowly drew back, keeping my eyes on Spencer the entire time. "Do you know why I'm so good at my job?"

"Because you kill without compunction or remorse." I felt like Spencer was withholding something, already. Maybe that his team has no clue about the letters we wrote back and forth to each other? Or, the details of said letters?

"That only gets a girl so far in life," I countered, knowing he'd rather not I say anything even remotely...sexual. "No, it's because I think through every potential outcome and then I plan accordingly," I finished. "You see, I didn't walk into your trap, you walked into mine."

\-------♥-------- 

"Where's your head, Spencer?" I questioned as I began my journey inching towards him, still within our booth. "What are you thinking about?" I was pleasantly surprised to see a genuine smile spread across his smug grin. 

"I was thinking about entropy," Spencer calmly answered. I kept my eyes on his and I snaked my hand over his stomach, slowly inching south.

"Mmhmm," I hummed, urging him to continue as I felt for his holster resting on his belt. I smirked as I felt Spencer's breath stop suddenly, causing me to falter a touch. 

"It's the thermodynamic measure of the degradation of matter and energy in the universe," Spencer continued, clearly trying not to think of where he must know my hand is reaching for. "To put it in another way---" The moment I wrapped my slender fingers around the grip of his revolver, I heard his voice spring up an octave...or two. I pulled away, daring to hold eye contact as I smirked his way, carefully showing his he is no longer armed. 

"There's your gun." 

"Good evening," our clueless waiter said, not knowing the reality of our "date." I playfully got back into character, much to my date's surprise. 

"Hi," I gasped, pretending to have recently finished making out with Spencer, "Uh, you know what? We've been having so much fun getting to know one another, we'll let you know when we're ready, okay? Thank you." He nodded his head, and walked away. "Now that we got that out of the way, will you do me a favor and tell Blondie McBlonderson over there at the bar to disappear?" I gave my head a slight turn towards the blonde that Sharon pointed out to me earlier. She was busy sipping on what was probably a classic rum and coke. Typical for a FBI stakeout. 

I gleefully smiled as his teammate slunked out of her seat, giving a walk of shame of sorts as she made her way past us, no doubt giving Spencer her best "I'm sorry" face. I decided I shouldn't get too ahead of myself here, so I drifted away from Spencer and back over to my original spot at the opposite end of the booth. 

"Thanks for playing, sweetie," I called out to the blonde as I watched her leave. One down, three to go. 

"Alright, you're in charge," Spencer said, clearly dropping his 'first date' act. "Tell me what you want, and I'll see if I can get it here for you."

"Anything I want?" I mentally thought it over, trying to gauge a reaction out of him.

"Anything you want," Spencer repeated.

"Like a million dollars in unmarked bills, maybe a plane to Aruba?" I wanted to see Spencer give me something to go off of. He did say chess was indeed a game he always almost failed to lose. 

"Is that what you want?" I felt myself wishing to know his answer. His real answer. Like how he would write me in his letters. 

"And you'll say you'll bring it here, but the real plan is to distract me from what is, I'm sure, an impressive law enforcement response just outside that door," I explain, eyeing his co-workers for a second each, his eyes never leaving mine, so he misses my marks. "Is that the plan?" 

"That's the plan," Spencer confirms, his eyes narrowing in on mine ever so slightly. 

"Okay, let's talk. But, let's talk about something interesting, at least," I coyly eyed him through a shit-eating smirk. "Tell me about me." I perked up at him, eagerly awaiting the words that have yet to leave those mesmerizing lips. 

"You?" Spencer asked, almost as if he was actually considering telling me I wasn't all that interesting. Which, I knew would have been a lie. "You're a black widow hitwoman. You specialize in seduction, and you're patient." So, the man knew and yet, he still willingly fell for my obvious trap. "You learn everything you can about the men you're hired to kill, physically, psychologically, emotionally, because you want them in as compromised a position as possible so they don't see it coming when you pull the trigger." Oh, dear. If only he truly understood the weight of his words as he spoke them. Especially since he was talking about....me. 

"And when I do it really well, they pull the trigger themselves,"I finished his thought, nonchalantly. I clocked his eyebrow raise, knowing he'd be just like the rest of them. He'd pull the trigger, willingly, when the time came. He was right. I am ridiculously patient. I decided that it was time for the two of us to play a game. "Give me your phone."

"Why?" Oh, Spencer. For a genius, he sure did have an awful lot to learn. 

"Because I know what I want now," I murmured with a soft enthusiasm. "I want to play a game with you. You like games?"

"I do." Cocky.

"Do you win?"

"I always win." I grinned, wildly at him. This was going to be so much fun. 

"Give it to me." I watch his hand reach for his phone and hand it over as if I ask for it all the time. "Okay, here's my game," I tell Spencer as I work the timer app on his phone, setting it for thirty minutes, exactly. "You have thirty minutes to answer every question I ask, and if you lie, I'll know. Because I've spent the past ten years of my life studying men and their lies before I kill them." I wanted him to know in that moment that normally I would have whisked him off to a more private location, and killed him. But, Spencer was...different. And that fact, along with a few others, was why he was still breathing. "Do you believe me?"

"I do." Spencer nodded. I narrowed my eyes at him. He didn't lie. I wolfishly grinned at him. 

"That was true. You're getting this," I laughed through my teeth, already planning my epic escape. "Now, here's how we'll know who wins at the end of thirty minutes. If you win, you'll drag me out of here in handcuffs," while that wasn't going to happen tonight, I couldn't help but imagine how Spencer would look handcuffed, and at my mercy. "But, if I win, you will escort me out, like a gentleman, to make sure I exit safely. What do you say, Spencer? Think you can win this one?" I enunciated my last few words, subtly tossing breadcrumbs his way, curious if he really was smart enough to catch them.

Spencer beckoned me forward towards him with his fingers, "Considering everything you put Garcia, and so many people, through," he whispered, his breath hot on my face, "you're going to have to shoot me in the face before you walk out of here." Kinky. Since, as he so quaintly pointed on, am the one with the gun, I flashed Spencer my pearly whites, noticing his eyes never left mine, not once. 

"Game on," I smirked up at him.

"What do you want to ask me?"

"How you found me, of course," I wondered outloud, already pretty much knowing how, they had Penelope Garcia, after all. "A professional learns from her mistakes," I quipped as I leaned in towards Spencer, hitting the start button with my index finger. 

"We got our big break in the case, at the end of last year," he began. "I didn't learn how big, until I came back from some time off." Time off? He's a fucking FBI agent. Why the hell was he even allowed time off??!

"Why did you take time off?" Spencer almost acted like he flat out ignored my question, going into an odd explanation, which, frankly, I could've cared less about. "Stop!"

"Wha---?" Spencer looked utterly confused.

"You didn't tell me why you took time off." And here I thought he thoroughly understood my rules, here. Apparently, he did not. 

"It's not relevant."

"That's not the game. The game is you answer every question I ask. Is it a secret?" I wanted to see how far I had to push him. How close was his ledge? Maybe I should bring up his fake wife's name...cause I'm guessing it belongs to someone very real. 

"No," Spencer shook his head. 

"Is it dirty?"

"No."

"Then tell me," I complained. God, this was already getting b o r i n g. 

"It's not important to your story."

"Out of curiosity, is it me you don't want to tell or the people listening in?" I knew the answer before I ever even thought to ask the question. 

"Is this really how you want to spend your thirty minutes?" Taunting you? Definitely. 

"Yes," I answered. I gazed down at his phone, knowing it would be wise of me to move on. He's an idiot if he thinks I'm forgetting to bring it up again. "No...Okay, so you were saying you showed up for work that morning and...." With a small smile showcasing his dimples, Spencer continued telling me his drawn out story. 

"We learned that someone unexpected decided to talk."

"And who would that be?"

Spencer clearly explained in gross detail about Cochran. I hated him. "...and then, I said, 'who's that?'" This was the moment I had been waiting for. The moment where his entire team discovered my esteemed reputation. I was pleasantly shocked to learn that at this point, my name was kept hidden. 

"Me!" I said, confidently, not missing the smile donning Spencer's lips. 

"Yes."

"Wow," I drawled out, "that was really impressive. Yeah, the way you just made all those brilliant deductions with all that information that was just handed to you on a silver platter." I stared, blankly, at him. For a supposed certifiable genius, Spencer Reid was sure missing quite a few marbles. "Quick question--are you guys really profilers or are you just lucky?" I emphasized on that word because the only information they could find was accessible because we allowed it. "Because this, what I'm about to say--" she clears her throat, "is profiling."

Spencer looked white as a sheet as I pressed on. "The reason you took time off from work," I told him so. Well, in my head, I did, but he had to know I wasn't about to drop it just because he asked nicely, "was to deal with the same girl who broke your heart." Ah, the namesake of the fake wifey. Why am I blanking on her name?

"No." Damn. He's telling the truth. 

"The death of a parent, then." The second I said 'parent,' I saw a twinge in Spencer's eyes. Ooohhh, I'm getting warmer, that's for sure. 

"Nope." Again, not a lie. Not entirely the truth, either. 

"Ah! Hello, I'm getting close," I said, like a lightbulb suddenly went off in my head. "It's Mom or Dad in the Billiard room with the candlestick?" Spencer's face fell almost completely this time. Now, I really wanted to know. "Oh, you're mad at me, aren't you?" 

"No. Not even a little bit." Lie. 

"Yes, you are," I countered. "I can tell." I could also telling that the veins in his neck was growing the more I pressed on this whole 'time-off' business. 

"No offense, but you're not really worth getting angry at." Ouch. I felt a tear fight its way through my eye. My ass of a father had said something eerily similar once upon a time. You better believe I'm worth getting angry at. I'll make damn sure of it, Spencer fucking Reid. 

"So you figured out what the four of us did, and then, what?" I asked him thru clenched teeth. I was beginning to get agitated. 

"We profiled that you operated as spokes on a wheel. Somehow it had to be centralized. How you got jobs, who paid you. Somebody did all of that for you."

"You found the Snowman, didn't you?" Spencer nodded, diving into some boring ass details here and there, until he mentioned a flash drive. That caused my ears to perk up. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," I cut Dr. Know-it-All off. "What just happened there?"

"When we arrested Cochran, we found a flash drive, one that gave us a specific shadow of the dark net, one we didn't even know existed." I smirked a little as he plowed through specifics about how the Snowman was a dork teenager who, honestly, was so easily manipulated. Though, in hindsight, I guess his gullibility made it easy for Spencer's team to track him and compel him to comply. 

"Garcia used it to find the website that the Snowman set up for all of you. Once we had the website, we had geography, specifically, the safe house you were keeping him in. So, we waited until the shift change, when we knew we could take two of you down at once."

I reveled in knowing just how everything was falling into place, much like a jigsaw puzzle. Except, Spencer was truly unaware of the hidden piece I kept away from his greedy hands. "Well, well, well. You took the Chemist and the Sniper out of commission, huh?" I knew I was going to be the toughest to not only track, but also to reel in. Spencer seemed content on believing he was the perfect bait. Well, I'm here, aren't I?

"Did you know?" Spencer's question had me falter for a brief moment. 

"I knew something was off," I answered, vaguely. "They didn't bid on some contracts, and this isn't the kind of job where you get to take time off to be with your...." Aha! Segway! I took a chance that, for him, he must have been a mommy's boy, growing up, "...mother?" Spencer's face reflected that I was, indeed, right. "Is it your mom? It's gotta be your mom." Spencer softly nodded, clearly urging me to drop this apparently pressing question. "Why'd you take time off from the F.B.I.?"

"I'm not gonna tell you," he stalled. 

"Spencer," I mocked back, unconvinced that he was going to get away with not telling me. "Why did you take time off from the F.B.I.?" I was getting upset. As much as I enjoyed our little tete-a-tete so far, Spencer was seriously testing the little patience I now had left in front of him, because of him.

"You can ask me as many times as you want, and you can continue to waste your time, but I'm still not gonna tell you." My date was beginning to become so red in his face that it gravitated down his neck, and oh, the things I wish I could do to that neck..I took a breath in, knowing exactly what Spencer was doing. Oh, he was going to pay.

"Then you're cheating, and I don't like cheaters." 

"You don't get everything you want just because you're pointing a gun at me under a table." Oh, I don't? "You're not the first killer to point a gun at me, you're not even the first woman to point a gun at me." Well, damn, There went that fantasy...right out the window. "Sorry." 

"You're really gonna take this all the way, aren't you?" I asked him, gauging his response. 

"Yeah," he nodded.

"So am I. Look at my face. Does it look like I'm bluffing?"

"I know you're not bluffing," Spencer quipped, keeping eye contact with me. I could hear the cogs in his massive brain working circles around what I've been keeping from him since the moment I found out his last name wasn't Merton. 

"I'm gonna ask you once more time," I edged, shifting over to where Spencer was still sitting. "Before you say no, I want you to consider something.." I reached out and yanked his tie an inch closer to me, leaning over just enough so that whoever was on the receiving end, probably dear Penelope, could hear every word I was about to say next. "I'll kill the fed walking towards me first." I locked eyes with Spencer once more, almost daring him to call my bluff. 

\-------♥-------- 

"A stationary target's easier to hit," I explained, already knowing that Spencer knew this, "after that, it's a free-fire zone." I swear I can see the sweat forming around his brows. It's an older man. Looks like all he's missing is a Cuban cigar. I slowly eye him, knowing my date's eyes are studying mine at his teammate steps closer and closer. 

"Fine, I'll tell you," Spencer stammers. Well, now that's more like it. 

"Sorry, what was th---?"

"I'll tell you!" I giggled just a little at my triumph, knowing I had just successfully not only pushed Spencer into finally telling me about his mother, but I sent another BAU member packing. "Rossi, stand down." Rossi. I knew it. Italian. I carefully watched Spencer turn around to beg his teammate to amscray. "Please." The older man nodded, giving me a death glare as he slunked away. I looked back at the man of the hour, who did not return my smile. 

I gazed over as Spencer fidgeted with his tie. I wondered just how many times this evening had I made him flustered. No, he looked positively furious, and I was loving every second of it. I propped my elbows on the table, eagerly awaiting the tale I knew Spencer had on the tip of his tongue. "My mom has schizophrenia, and the doctor has changed her medication, which seemed to agitate her, so I went to the treatment center to help her." So...his mom has an incurable disease...did his team really not know? And they call themselves profilers...

"That's it? You just risked your life over Mommy's pills?" There had to be more. 

"It's the truth." Partial lie. 

"It's part of the truth. You're holding something back. Here's what I'm going to do." I give Spencer a soft smile as I lean over and grab his phone off the table. "I'm going to penalize you by adding ten minutes." I needed to know why he was refusing to tell me whatever his dark secret is. I needed to start playing dirty. "And keep in mind, that the only reason you're not dead right now is because I did learn something important." He scoffed.

"Oh really, what's that?"

"Your backup, I flushed them out." I lied. Clearly, Spencer assumed I honestly thought he only came in with two agents posted inside...please. I sure wasn't born yesterday. "It's just you and me, now."

"So, when we left off, the score was you had two of our guys and the Snowman," I opted to stray back to the topic Spencer obviously felt far more comfortable with, knowing we'd get back to his crazy mom sooner or later. "You must have thought you were home free." 

"No. If anything, the case was harder," Spencer said, clearing his throat. He spoke of Sharon, though I caught on that his team, including him, all presumed the Bomber was a man, like the rest, well, except me. "But first, we had to get the data that we needed from the Snowman. From that, we could start to build the profile that would lead us to you. When we knew what we were looking for, the pattern was obvious."

Spencer dove in on his revelation of discovering that I had flat out lied in one of my emails. Darn. Kids and babies, I didn't do. Men, disgusting men who were too cowardly to just ask for a fucking divorce? Yeah, those men could rot in their graves I made just for them. I was surprised at the way he talked about how he wanted to be the one to pretend to be the kind of client I hunted. Almost as if he knew and wanted nothing more than to be my dutiful prey. A married man who wanted his pregnant wife dead. 

"You. You're the flaw," I figured. "You're not married, and you don't have children."

"I'm the person on my team that's the closest to your age, and..I knew that if I lost control of the situation, you'd be more likely to negotiate with a peer." Getting cocky, again, I see. Looks like Dr. Reid is slow to learn his lesson.

"You have zero control here. None. I outflanked you from the beginning." 

"Some of your moves were pretty obvious," Spencer rebutted. I was eager to hear which ones came to the forefront of his beautiful mind. 

"Such as?" I wanted to know. 

"Such as...showing up armed, such as...changing the venue at the last moment." Well, duh, the first one was painfully obvious. Doubt he knew about my gun before I snatched his off him. 

"I needed a restaurant full of innocents in case this was a trap." Oh, the irony was so not lost on me, I could hear his eyes roll at my words.

"If you really suspected this was a trap, then why show up at all?" Spencer sure had a point. Why did I show up? Oh yeah, to prove that no matter what, I was going to walk out of here, unharmed, and as a free woman. "Even when you first laid eyes on me, from the bar, from outside, from wherever you were, you should have seen through me, and kept on moving, but you didn't." He's right. Here, in front of me, was a man whose skin I knew I could get under. Problem was, he was beginning to manifest inside me, too. "You couldn't." 

"Because you can't get to the man you really want to hurt, so you need to hurt any man who reminds you of him." As much as what Spencer just said was true...he was clearly, absolutely nothing like my father. And, honestly, that is the real reason he is alive and breathing inches away from me right now. 

"That's kind of boilerplate psychology, isn't it? I'm just another girl with daddy issues."

"You'd be surprised how many killers do what they do because of their parents," Spencer confessed. I eyed him, wearily. He was starting to come off as sympathetic towards me. The last thing I needed from him right now was his fucking sympathy. "If it's so...boilerplate, why don't we test that theory?" Bold move, Doctor. "How hard did you look for him?" 

A lump caught in my throat. Him. My father. The man who helped me down the path I had been on for so long. To the point where I knew of nothing else like him when it came to men. Especially men with hidden agendas. 

"Very hard." I stared down at Spencer, keeping any hint of tears far away from my eyes as possible. Yet, somehow I'm guessing he saw them anyway.

"And how disappointed were you when you realized that you will never find him?" Oh, I'll find that sick son of a bitch. And when I do, he'll be paying for more than just my lost childhood. "You needed some other outlet for your rage, and for a while this worked, but it also tripped you up." Silence filled the space between us, much like a gas both of us were afraid to inhale. "Can I tell you a little secret?" Spencer whispered, motioning for me to get closer. "Everything eventually falls apart. The trick is accepting when it's over." More silence. He got to me. That smug bastard with a genius IQ fucking got to me. 

beep-beep-beep

"Except, it ain't over, is it?" I gazed around our surroundings. I wasn't exactly planning on letting Spencer in on my little secret, but the sheer joy I knew I would feel the second I tell him, well, that made it hard to resist. 

"Do you really think I'm just gonna let you walk out of here?" I was growing tired of this man's ingenious shortcomings. One would think with an IQ as high as his, he'd have figured out my hidden agenda much sooner. I have to admit, I am thrilled to be the one to tell him. Pointing out the obvious is one of my specialties. 

"You profiled so much about me, except, you forgot to ask the most important question. Why would I make you sit here for thirty minutes?" I knew he knew...now..that something was off. Spencer was sweating bullets now. I allowed myself the satisfaction of ogling him just a little. 

"Because you're stalling." Huh. Poor Spencer sounded...scared? As he should be. I had him. I had them all. I was so close to checkmate with him, I could practically taste it. 

"Then you don't know me at all," I murmured, feigning hurt. Had he honestly not learned a thing about anything he had been so keen to tell me during this entire evening?! "Do you think I'd show up here without an escape plan?" I eyed him, slowly. He mirrored me. "Or is that what just another girl with daddy issues would do?" I played the one card I've held in my hand for many years. The one card I knew for sure he knew I had, as well. 

"Maybe, if you hadn't fallen victim to your own gender bias---and yes, all men have gender bias, even you, Doctor Reid--you would have recognized that your entire strategy was based on one faulty detail." All men are the same. If it walks like it has a dick, talks like it has a dick, it most likely sure as hell thinks with it's damn dick. "Can you see it?" I waited. Patiently. I knew at any moment, Spencer would reach the end of his thought process and once he managed that...it would just simply click. The moment his eyes snapped back to mine, I knew, and smirked in response. 

"You're not here alone."

"And my partner? Less paranoid than you think." The holy terror I saw light up in Spencer's eyes was worth the buildup. Even better, I would even bet that his entire team, Spencer included, still presumed Sharon was a man. 

"You planted a bomb in the building."

"I didn't," I shot back at him in a snap, "My job was to keep your entire team focused on us, so he could do what he does best."

"There are innocent people here." Spencer looked like he was in physical pain, now. And my, oh my, was that a sight. One I could sure as hell get used to under different circumstances. 

"Yes, there are," I said, as if it were bluntly obvious, which, it was. "So let me remind you what we're playing for. Not only will I walk out of here, but you will make sure I leave safely." I could see it on his face. The defeat. The realization of just how much weight my earlier words carried. I couldn't help but smile, even giggle a little. "And from where I'm sitting..." I totally, without a doubt, won. "It looks like I've won."

\-------♥-------- 

"You need to pay attention to this part." I had him. Just like a pawn on my chessboard. I should've called him out when he told me he always wins. Looks like his apparent streak has come to an abrupt stop. Pity. "I'm going to tell you the terms of my victory. I want you to move all of your backup away from this building. If I walk out of here, and I see one cop, I will incinerate us all." Spencer should know by now, I was far from bluffing. 

"I can't do that--"

"Spencer---"

"It's not me. What you're asking takes time." I was so done with the doctor's pathetic excuse at stalling. He knew his goose was cooked. I leant over towards him, even further than before, and gripped his tie taught, talking directly to Penelope...and Aaron Hotchner, I believe. I wanted every BAU agent within a one mile radius to learn I was done with whatever plan they walked in with. 

"This is to whoever's in charge," I said as I kept my eyes locked on my date, "Unless you guys want to be responsible for the biggest F.B.I. disaster since Waco, you will back off now." I knew they would comply easily. Like Mr. Goody-Two Shoes, here, every FBI agent wanted nothing more than to protect innocent lives. That's why I knew only moments later that everyone except for Spencer and I would soon be escorted out, which didn't matter to me. All I wanted was my ticket out of here, knowing the bomb would never go off unless my safety was compromised. I leaned back towards Spencer, whispering, "Watch this."

Right, I was. A good fifty-some patrons were soon walked out, not exactly having much of a clue as to why they were being asked to leave. "Look at that. There they go."

"All we wanna do---"

"Minimize the collateral damage, I get it," I waved Spencer off. I wanted him to know that while I didn't exactly care for innocent lives, I have a much bigger goal for this event. "I'm not mad. It'll give me the cover I need to slip out. I just need to know it's clear, so do me a favor, and tell your boss that nobody leaves until its safe for me to." I almost went to give him a hug, maybe a slight kiss on the cheek, you know, to show my gratitude for the man who was about to make sure I walked out of here, unharmed, and uncuffed. 

Spencer truly looked like he was busy searching for moves that no longer existed in this scenario. He was literally grasping for straws with the many tangents his brain must be firing, trying to make sense as to how he got here, promising to escort me out the doors like the proper gentleman he was so obviously raised to be.

"Well?" I knew he had nothing. So why the fuck was he still stalling?! "Spencer..." It was such a pleasure to watch the genius Dr. Spencer Reid come undone before me. To watch him falter, to discover I was already two moves ahead, to see that he fell right into my trap in the most beautiful way, imaginable. I marveled at how much fun it had been to mess with him, to get inside his head. Looked pretty painful now, from where I was sitting. Shame. 

"You can leave." I shuffled my way out of the booth, not even bothering to shove him off his side. I had my jacket and purse in hand, turning to face the door, eyeing him to get up as he so dutifully promised. "But you won't." The fuck?

"I'm sorry?"

"Double or nothing, I can get you to sit back down." I glared at him. Was he being serious right now? I eyed the restaurant, curious to see how many of his team remained. If he had an ace up his sleeve, I was sure as hell going to whip up another one of my own. 

"Wow," I coughed a hard laugh. "Now, you're stalling." 

"You played your trump card, but, I have one, too." Well, color me intrigued. I was curious enough to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I ultimately decided whatever he had, could be saved for another day. If he ever cared to chase me, that is. 

"Thanks for dinner," I smiled, sweetly, silently begging him to give up and make due on his promise to me. "I had fun," I pretended to lie, knowing Spencer knew as much. I twirled on my heel, expecting him to join me as I took a couple steps towards the doors. 

"I found your father." NO. No way in hell, he did. I searched for that bastard for years. Genius or not, there was no way Dr. Spencer fucking Reid found the man I've wanted to kill my entire life, in a matter of less than a year. Then, had the fucking nerve to use that as his damn trump card. 

"No, you didn't." I was losing my edge. I could feel the tears threatening to fall down my cheeks. 

"Look at my face? Am I bluffing?" I hated that, for the first time, I couldn't tell. His face didn't outright say liar, but it sure as hell didn't sound one hundred percent confident, either. I weighed my options. On the one hand, I could definitely ignore him, and still walk out of here a free woman. On the other, I would finally have the man I have wanted to kill for over almost two decades, in return for going to jail. But, is it worth it? "I'll tell you where he is. But you need to sit back down and listen to the rest of my story." No. I want to hear it from where I'm standing, thank you. 

"No, tell me now. Or I'll---"

"Detonate the bomb?" Spencer asked, like he could see right thru me. Well, he wasn't wrong. "You're not going to do that, Cat, because then you won't learn anything." I now really hated that he had that stupid eidetic memory, though I hoped, when it came to me, he wouldn't need it otherwise. "You said you were good at your job, because you think through every outcome. Well, guess what---so do I." Fuck. I had a decision to make. Spencer, or the door. Freedom, or finally face my dear old dad. I huffed as I landed back in the booth, glaring down the doctor with daggers I wish would pierce his newfound confidence in front of me to shreds. 

Alright." Spencer leans close to me, and I swear I saw a glint of dominance in his eyes. Fuck, I wanted to chase that. "Finish the story."

"To prepare for this dinner, I had to learn everything about you, starting with your real name." So, he essentially used the exact same tactic I did. We both walked into this restaurant knowing far more about the other than either one of us bothered to verbally acknowledge. "...Catherine Adams, daughter of Daniel Adams, who did, in fact, leave the country in 1987, but returned in 2012. Based on confidential records in rehabs and sober living houses, which, in turn, pointed us to flophouses and soup kitchens. He couldn't put twenty-four hours together, sober. And, you can probably imagine my surprise when I discovered that he actually lives right here in D.C." Shit. That motherfucker as been here for that long and I never knew? How the hell could I not have found out? I have been using every resource available to me, and the fucking FBI finds him first? NO. It's too fucking good to be true. I need more definitive evidence. And I needed it now. 

"Where?" My voice cracked. I no longer cared. Spencer was confident as shit that he had me. I could feel it. He spoke so surely of himself that I was beginning to honestly take him at his word. 

"It's not that simple. He was in bad shape when I found him." Spencer then painted me a vivid picture of an arrogantly drunk man who couldn't even be bothered enough to try and look at a simple photograph of his fucking daughter. I didn't know who I hated more, now. My sorry excuse for a father, or Dr. Spencer Reid, the man who brought this new information to light. 

"He...didn't remember me?" A stray tear fell. I wiped the rest, sniffling as I looked back at Spencer. The man seemed...distraught. I could've sworn I felt a hint of sorrow coming off him in waves. Spencer actually felt fucking sorry for me. I hated that even more. 

"The alcoholism shredded his brain. I'm sorry," he said. Even though I could tell he was being sincere, I brushed him off as best I could. I needed to take control back. I needed to flip the scene. Spencer Reid wasn't going to win this game. Not if I could fucking help it. 

"You're not sorry," I snapped. I hoped he could see the broken girl inside. The one whose father left her, the broken little girl who went from foster family to foster family, growing up without the love he clearly had in his life. Well fucking good for him. "Sorry is what people say when they don't understand." I was done. I almost just left, no longer wanting to waste my time. Then, I thought over his last words...sorry. The way he said it..then it dawned on me. "....wait."

I took great pride in watching the blood drain from his flushed face. He knew by the evident smirk I now had, that he let out a Freudian slip. Now, I had another way back in. "You're mother---tell me." He mentioned my father not remembering me...so, his mother either has dementia or Alzheimer's. That paired with her schizophrenia he already told me about, the gene pool he was born from does sound all that appealing. 

"Is--is this part of the game?" I have to admit, the doctor is rather...cute, when he gets flustered. And boy, how I thoroughly enjoy pushing his buttons. 

"No," I shook my head. "The game's over."

"When I looked at her medical chart, it....didn't make any sense. The medication that they gave her should have been helping, but I couldn't figure out what was making her so angry. So...I uh, I went to see her." So, that's who he was spending time with when he wrote that he wouldn't be able to send me any more letters for a time. "The moment I walked into her room, I saw it." Now, I see, it was his turn to cry. Well, would you look at the two of us. Quite the pair we are. A Mommy's boy and a Daddy's girl, I scoffed. "For three seconds, she didn't know who I was."

I'm not sure how, but my heart dropped for him just then. For a brief moment, I actually wished we were just a couple of normal adults awkwardly here on a true first date. Sadly, reality is much less promising. "I um, I had her tested that morning, and I found out that night, that she had early onset dementia. Most likely Alzheimer's."

"Did you test yourself?" In that moment, I honestly found myself caring about Spencer Reid. Not that anyone, especially him, would ever believe me. I watched him lower his head in defeat, giving me my answer. "No, you didn't. You were too scared."

"I thought I dodged a bullet when I turned 30 and didn't have a schizophrenic break like her, but, uh, this is somehow bigger and scarier because I can actually see it happening. All the memories that we used to share....are just dying."

I felt more for Dr. Spencer Reid than any other man I've ever had the distinct pleasure of meeting. He truly was one-of-a-kind. A diamond in the rough. A pure soul who could so easily be corrupted, yer, there was a brightness even I could see in him that wouldn't falter for no one. 

"I can't stop it. I can't help her. All I can do is find people that I can help." There it is. The truth. Spencer sees me as damaged and feels he needs to remedy his own god forsaken hero complex on me. Well, Doctor, I have been fine on my own, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. 

"Is that really why you showed up tonight? To help me?" I choked on my words. I leaned in even closer to Spencer, wanting to make damn sure he not only could hear me, but was looking me straight in the eyes as I spoke. "Do you know how many men have told me that they wanted to help me?" I tilted my head towards him, knowing he got my message loud and crystal clear. "How do you think that worked out for them?"

\-------♥-------- 

"You're right, you don't need my help. You don't need anyone's help. You are completely in control." Wise words from a man who is only trying to save his own skin. I know better. 

"Oohhh! Ooooohhhh!"

Spencer and I shot our heads over towards the noise, and instantly I knew who it had been. Sharon. Somehow, his team figured out who she was. Guess she wasn't as discreet as I had assumed. Note to self: take more care in picking my future partners. 

As Sharon and one of Spencer's partners were in a full-on cat flight, I took my window of opportunity, pulling his revolver out and angling it directly at his neck. Like a smart boy, Spencer stood up with me, as I wrapped an arm around his waist to ensure he wouldn't dare move. Just as I clicked the safety off, I heard his friend's voice. 

"F.B.!.! Everybody stay calm, please." 

"We're going to be smart about this, and talk it out, aren't we, Cat?" A woman called out at me, keeping Sharon's hand behind her back, cuffed, already done disabled the bomb as suspected. 

"That's up to you," I quipped, still loosely holding the gun in my hand. 

"Get everyone out of here," Spencer piped up. 

"Move!" The woman yelled, gathering as many patrons as possible out the exit. I didn't care about them. Never did. Right now, it was me and Spencer. Anyone else would simply be collateral damage. 

"Morgan, you two," Spencer said, harshly, to his friend. I watched Morgan look between Spencer and the woman. Still, the stubborn man did not move. 

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Guess we're right back where we started," I murmured, gently pressing the barrel of the gun to his chin, while catching him eyeing his friend, then back down at me. "You and me with a gun."

"Reid, it's time," Morgan said, almost our of breath, to Spencer. 

No." 

"We don't have a choice, we have to do it."

"Do what?" Now, I was confused. Confused and definitely getting pissed. 

"Morgan, shut up!"

"There's one thing he hasn't told you, yet," Morgan said with an air of confidence. 

"That's not true, he's lying. Don't listen to him," I heard Spencer plead, and now, I was stuck. Both were clearly lying to some degree, but after the night I had, I was at my wit's end. And it appears as though they both knew that. I know Spencer did. 

"What haven't you told me?"

"Nothing! I've told you--"

"What do I not know?!"

"Nothing! Nothing!"

"We brought your father here," Morgan said, in haste. That halted my movements, slightly. I glanced up at Spencer, gauging his reaction to all this. He looked...defeated. Like his friend just outed another secret he wasn't thrilled I knew about now. 

"Here?" I choked. I temporarily lost my grip on the revolver before steadying it, making sure it was aimed directly at my date. "He's here." Spencer scoffed, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was pissed he didn't get to be the one to break the news to me, first. 

"He's right outside," Morgan said. "Reid thought he needed every bargaining chip he could get." 

"Morgan, I'm begging you, don't. Don't." 

"Every bargaining chip he could get," Morgan repeated, clearly looking only at me, now. "To convince you to do the right thing."

"How is this the right thing?" I asked him, knowing his answer. God, it was everybody's fucking answer. 

"Your father killed your mother. And there's no statue of limitations on murder, so you really need to think about your options right now. You shoot him, I will kill you. Or, if you surrender, you will live to testify against your father."

"That's not good enough," I spit out my words. 

"We can arrange it for the two of you to drive into custody together, and then you can remind him of who you are."

"If you give her this, she wins. Don't do it," Spencer pleaded. Seeing him beg was quite the sight. 

"Kid, I am trying to save your life," Morgan quipped at Spencer. "Now let me do that." That's when I hear the sirens coming from outside the restaurant. "They're bringing him in right now." Spencer looks drained, like a sad puppy that got kicked over and over again. 

"You're really upset about this, aren't you?"

"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" His friend asked me. "A chance to finally hurt the man who deserves it?"

"They all deserve it," I spat at him. 

"He deserves it the most." By this point, I had made up my mind. I was just shocked that Spencer and Morgan were still trying to play the "who can convince her first" fight. 

"Only if Spencer escorts me out," I cooed, looking up at the man of the hour. 

"Deal." I tossed his gun on the floor towards Morgan, allowing Spencer to grasp both my wrists with just one of his big, strong hands. Oh my, I am going to have to find out for myself just exactly what those hands of his can do....I hear the clicking of his FBI standard issue handcuffs, the cold metal wrapping around my small wrists. Once I was locked, Spencer placed the same hand over my now cuffed wrists, gently pushing into my back, escorting me out the double doors. 

\-------♥-------- 

True to his word, like a gentleman, Spencer escorted me out of Harry and Glenn's. Less than five feet from us now is an armored FBI car, presumably holding my bastard of a father inside. I felt Spencer's eyes on me. "Wait." I can feel Spencer's eyes on me, almost like he wants to say something, but then adverts his eyes away. I take in a breath and huff it out. "Okay, I'm ready." As we approach the car, Spencer and his friend open the doors slowly. Empty. Spencer Reid bluffed. The lying doctor fucking won. 

Spencer pushes me up inside, not at all caring to be gentle anymore, it seems. "You lied to me," I sniffled. Not only did he lie, but I fucking believed him. 

"If it makes you feel any better, I really---I did look for him," Spencer said. "But, I couldn't find him, so, uh, yeah, I did make it all up."

I smirked up at him in disbelief. "Not all of it. You don't pull a story about a parent losing her memory out of nowhere. Your mother and the Alzheimer's, that's true."Spencer may have succeeded in landing me in jail, but his beautiful mind was bound to betray him before I'd ever see the light of day. "I won." 

"How so?"

"Because, I will get out of here."

"Yeah, in twenty years, maybe, if you're lucky."

"Yeah, that's fine. You know why? Because...in twenty years I'll remember your name, but you won't remember mine." For the smallest moment, I saw true, wild fear in Dr. Spencer Reid's eyes. Probably for the first time in his life, I believe he wished he was as average as the next guy. The banging of the doors as he scurried away from me gave me an eerie sense of control back. 

I had come to terms a long time ago that there was a good chance I would never meet the man I would so very much love to kill. Then Dr. Spencer Reid had to go and fuck that up. No worries. I may not be on the outside with the Network, but I'm sure I can bide my time in here, slowly. I just need a few months to get the ball rolling, cause once it does, Spencer ain't gonna know what the fuck hit him. 

As the I feel the car come to an abrupt halt, I am unchained from the inside, only to be dragged into another building. One that had a sign that clearly read: Mount Pleasant Women's Correctional Facility. A flicker of revenge crossed my mind. This was going to be a hoot. 

"Game on, Spencie."


	22. Spencer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a month since he sent Cat to prison. Does he miss her?

March 16, 2016

Today was a bad day. Not bad, as in it made me want to risk throwing the towel on my sobriety, but bad, as in I cried tears I wish I didn't have to. 

Morgan left the BAU today. He showed me how he and Savannah chose to give their son the middle name of Spencer. I always knew Morgan saw me as the kid brother he never had while growing up. I tried not to show how much it got to me whenever he would call me 'Pretty Boy,' and now, I wish I could hear him say that; cause, then it'd mean he never really left. 

I haven't been the same since the case that led to Cat Adams. 

Morgan caught on, asking me about it. I half-lied and said that I've just been down and out because of everything that's going on with my mom. Truth is, I strangely miss Cat. I miss our emails, yes, but I miss our letters the most. She's only been in prison for a month. I haven't gone to see her. I know she wants me to. I've already received two formal requests in her name. 

I chose to ignore them. 

I kept reminding myself. She lied to you the entire time. Her entire play consists of getting under the skin of her victims. And fuck....she got under mine. Bad. 

I found myself sat at my desk, writing Cat a letter. No intention of sending it. Just a way to write out my frustrations, as, for a time, she was the only one who even cared--no, pretended to listen. 

Cat, 

I know everything you ever wrote me was a lie. I lied to you, too. It's only been a month since I sent you to prison, but just know you're taking up space rent-free in my head, too. I admit, I do miss our letters. I'll have you know there was a moment when I honestly almost forgot why I was even communicating with you in the first place. 

I hate that I'm sitting here, writing a letter to someone I put away. I guess I should have listened to you more closing back at the restaurant. You do have a way of getting under your victims' skin. You're beginning to seep into my dreams, turning them into nightmares; ones I both can't wait to wake up from..and others where I strangely wish to sleep just a little longer for. 

I can even hear your boredom from my apartment, I swear. 

I don't plan on sending this letter to you. However, in the event that I hear from you, first; I will send it your way. No emails, please. My boss will find out and will question me about it. I'd rather not have that conversation if I can avoid it. 

~ Spencer

\-------♥-------- 

Another month went by. One case, in particular, struck me. We had two boys gone missing; both cases originally thought to be unrelated. Our noses led us to Antonia Slade. She's known as a serial killer of teens, having been incarcerated by Gideon, himself. We all took turns interacting with her in front of her cell, trying desperately to pull any information from her that we could. Didn't help that she was the type to talk cryptic and use reverse-psychology whenever she could. I knew she understood immediately about my germaphobia. She had to of. The way she looked directly at me as she spit in my hand. I wonder if I'll ever get the feeling to go away. The words she said to me hung in the air as I walked out. 

"You got everyone fooled, don't you? Calling yourself doctor..."

"You're really a phony, a puffed up little fraud. Is that why you're sad?" 

"You're not a complete idiot..." 

I waited until after I was no longer in that woman's sight. I shed a tear, as one of her remarks unfortunately did get to me. Mom has been skipping on her meds again, and I feel I'm at a loss. I still had the research that Savannah had handed to me over a month ago. Worst thing that could happen is I could lose my mom. I hated not letting my friends know, especially J.J., but, I didn't want to worry any of them if I could just do this on my own and protect how much time I truly do have left with Mom. 

That thought alone made it worth it.


	23. Catherine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cat's been in prison for over six months now. She gets computer privileges. She decides to put it to good use.

August 14, 2016

I fucking hated Doctor Spencer Reid. 

No. Not just hated. I especially despised the man. How dare he fucking trick me into complying into the back of an FBI armored truck, when I sure as hell had the upper hand the entire time we had been inside that restaurant! 

These were the thoughts that ran through my stupid brain every night inside Mount Pleasant Women's Correctional Facility. That's where the fucking doctor put me. Little did he know that winding up in jail wasn't exactly going to deter me from being a thorn in his fucking side. No...in here, I can sure make ends meet and soon enough, I will have the good doctor's attention once again. 

Six fucking months. That's how long it took for me to get in the guard's 'good graces' and be allowed computer privileges. Not long after I got in here, I knew what my endgame was going to be. Give the good doctor a taste of his own medicine. My guard, Wilkins, I believe his name was, has been eyeing me ever since I got here. I may have to put that to some use..later. 

For now, I was finally sat in the dingy old 'computer room,' which, surprise, consisted of one computer, one chair-though, not very comfortable-and, a trash bin. That was it. The dial tone was loud and annoying. I was thankful that I was granted access to email. I'm sure the only reason why is because no one here believes I have anyone to write to on here. But, they'd be so wrong. I had memorized Spencer's email. Sure, he may have initially fooled me with a fake name, but I knew his email was real. Guess I'm going to find out. 

I go to open the browser, already knowing that the facility has only one account that all inmates are required to use upon receiving email privileges. I contemplating betting if Dr. Reid would know right away who it was that sent him a random email. So, I decided not to be random.

To: sm123@gmail.com

From: mpwcf0123@gmail.com

Subject: Only open me if you missed me

Why hello, Spencer. I hope you didn't open this under false pretenses. You know I don't have time for that, seeing as I'm rotting right where you stuck me. I hate that I'm here by the way.   
So b o r i n g. The guards are nice to me, though. Guess it can't be all bad. I sincerely hope you sleep well at night. Alone still? I'm guessing. 

I just had a thought. You haven't forgotten about me already, have you? If so, I feel that hurt. Gotta go, I may have finally earned email privileges here, but they still whip me around as they please. I do so hope to hear from you, Doctor. In any capacity. 

You could even visit me.....

I opted not to sign my name. The fucking agent should remember me. I haven't been across from someone so...stimulating to my mind ever. And, I wasn't about to let go of him completely. In actuality, I had about ten minutes left of computer time. I opened up another browser, this time, googling an online chatroom for F/F. If I am going to formulate my plan for the good doctor, I am going to need someone who isn't in jail. 

miss45 has entered the chatroom. 

Hi. New here. Looking for a woman who wants to help me cause some serious trouble. 

I waited a beat. I knew my time was sure to get cut short. Wilkins liked to think he was a 'big strong man in charge,' but I'm sure he and I both knew better. I had ideas for him, too. I just needed someone who needed, well....me. After what felt like forever, I actually got quite a few responses. 

kged21 has entered the chatroom. 

fitprod56 has entered the chatroom. 

Trouble is my middle name. Happy to offer services. 

Will say I'm interested. I don't swing both ways. 

I had a few others to sift through, knowing I had little time to waste. Then, one name and response caught my gleeful eye. 

daddysgurl43 has entered the chatroom. 

You sure trouble is the only thing you want help in causing? 

A small smidge of a smile crept up over me. I needed to know more, but I could already hear the faint bell over the intercom, telling me my time was up at Wilkins will be at the door any minute. 

No time to chat, sorry. I will hopefully be back on later this week. Look out for me. ~ Miss 45. 

I shut off the monitor, not daring to let anyone here in on my plan. I knew before that security in a facility such as this sucked. They really don't give a shit about any of us. The feeling is so fucking mutual. 

"Alright, Cat. Time's up." 

\-------♥-------- 

Another month went by. I almost was beginning to worry that my computer privileges were revoked without being told. I had been slowly creating a place in my mind, one where no one else was allowed in. Smirking to myself, I already know I'll eventually make a key for a special someone. I just had to bide my time. 

"Alright Adams, it's time." 

Yes. Finally. I let myself take in a need breath after being escorted to the computer room. Once again, I am at the keyboard, trying to get to the chatroom. 

miss45 has entered the chatroom

I waited. It seemed like f o r e v e r had gone by. 

daddysgurl43 has entered the chatroom. 

I was beginning to think you forgot about me. 

I couldn't help the smile that slowly took over my face. I needed to begin forming my plan. I had no time for formalities and cutesy chat. I needed to get right down to business. 

You familiar the with D.C. area? My "trouble" lives there. 

Your "trouble" is a person? Niice. I have one of those too. Fucking FBI agent. 

This was going better than I thought. I might not have to do much explaining. 

That's funny. Mine is one, too. And....a doctor. 

I watched the dots move, disappear, then move again. 

Doctor??! You mean to tell me you know that fucker DOCTOR SPENCER REID?! 

Turns out my new friend, Lindsay, had just as big a bone to pick with the good doctor as I did. Now, all I had to wait hope he was dumb enough to think with his dick and not his brain, and soon I'll get either an email, or....a letter.


End file.
